Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Kal Korff Paint Ball Warrior

I know that in the past I have said that I was done with all things Kal Korff. I know that he attempts to stir hits to his website and his Facebook page by attacking anyone who expresses an opinion that differs from his. I know that no one in his world ever makes a simple mistake. It is always a LIE in capital letters and an attack on his expressed religious preference.

But his latest claim, and his latest rant, deserve some coherent comment. He has been claiming that he has been involved in wargames somewhere along the Pakistani and Afghan border. He is leading, according to his latest set of lies, an international team to fight terrorism. And when he finished with his afternoon of mock combat, he sat down to Thanksgiving dinner with the troops... the inference being that these were American service members because we are the only ones to have celebrated Thanksgiving on the day Kal was making his rounds.

None of this is true. It is a LIE. It is not a mistake, a distortion, or a misrepresentation. It is a LIE. He did not participate in wargames where he claimed he did. He did not feast with American soldiers as he claimed. I would be surprised if he had more than a turkey TV dinner heated in his microwave while staring at his computer wishing that he was a real colonel in a real organization.

Oh, I expect Kal to tell me Pavel Janousek, with whom he dines regularly, will be filing suit in the very near future unless I retract the above statements. I would, of course, inform Mr. Janousek that the truth is an absolute defense in these matters, and I can prove that Kal did not participate in any wargames with real soldiers anywhere in the Middle East.

Janousek, according to Kal, was going to file suit because of my blog postings in March 2007. In fact, in an email to me on March 9, 2007, which Kal claimed I deleted with out reading, Kal wrote, "You may send it [my response to Kal’s demand I remove the offending post] to me, since he [Jonousek] is leaving for Austria for one week (a luxury guys at his level can afford) and he said he expects this issue to be ‘resolved’ and that ‘Randle will step down’ by the time he is back, or he promised that he will be next in touch with you [meaning me] via his lawyers, and will proceed to bill you financially for every minute needed [bill away, but he has no legal authority to do that] to ‘deal’ with this. Not only lawyer time, but his time, and others."

And then the part I really like, which is typical Kal... "He desires to be amicable [Kal knows that word?] and says if you have any questions, to contact him via me... But for now, he said NOT for me to give you his email address, so I won’t." Why am I surprised?

Here we are three years later and not a peep out of Janousek, not a bill to be sent and not an email to me when I not only didn’t take down that post, but actually upped the ante later... but I digress.

So Kal wrote this last week, " Heading back to Pakistan, towards the Afghan border. I will be out doing drills all day and a fast war exercise before taking off... Looking forward to this, I’ll be the commander of a small op for our training."

He also wrote, "Our war game exercises included a FEMALE Indian sharpshooter who is a gold medalist in their country, she's a VERY nice lade. Another marksman who was a bronze medalist. It was interesting to see the different tactics Israel uses compared to India. In India and Pakistan they count their ammo, and measure each shot, as in shoot sparingly and try to get their targets with one shot. Since I am trained the Israeli way, this means to just open fire and advance while firing, so that the target is pinned down and cannot move nor dare show itself. As you advance you keep firing until you are on top of the target and it is then destroyed. The result was interesting...NO "casualties" on the Israeli side of things, the other side suffered mega hits. It was fun and educational. Often other personnel were taken out, leaving sharpshooters exposed and not exactly in the best position for them. It was quite a contrast."

And then, "It is not practical, at least in my opinion, to do one shot, one kill in this situation. I prefer steady firepower, because it paralyzes the potential enemy. Then you advance while the target is trapped and trying to survive. By the time you are within point blank range it is too late for said target. I have seen many such engagements, especially with tracers used on the mix, the poor person on the other end does not stand a chance. It is always easy to revert to one shot, one hit, but it is more risky, since one is more exposed and it is hard to cover 180 degrees in front of you at times."

And to prove what a hero he is, he wrote, "In my exercise, I was pinned down by three very different types of soldiers, so I had to take out all three. I went after the two and SAVED the sharp shooter for last. The sharpshooter should have been peppering me while I was laying mega rounds on them, but I kept suppressive firepower going across the 180 sweeping back and forth and just advanced like there was no tomorrow, using combination os Israeli tactics mixed in with some good ol American improvisation. :-)"

There is so much wrong here that I don’t know where to begin. He knows nothing of fire discipline. Spraying the area might look good in the movies but wastes ammunition and if you’ve had to hump it in with all your other gear, you might not be inclined to burn through it so fast. It might be difficult to get more, unless you happen to be using paintballs... but we’ll get to that in a moment.

He understands nothing about snipers, who would be five hundred to a thousand meters from his, or her, targets... and anyone who was exposed for two seconds would be targeted. A fifty caliber round can take out an enemy hiding behind a wall, as has been done more than once in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jumping up and running forward, spraying the area like you’re using a fire hose is a good way to get killed.

He does not understand fire and maneuver, though he does understand that in paintball war, you can jump up and run forward spraying the area. I doubt the Israelis train with paintball guns, or learn to run and gun.

Why am I so sure that Kal was playing paintball in Prague and not commanding wargames in Pakistan? Well, to show himself the hero, he posted pictures which prove my point. As you’ll see, Kal is holding a paintball gun, not a real infantry weapon, not anything in the NATO arsenal, and nothing used in combat training.

And below, Kal’s buddies are wearing chest protectors used in field hockey and in paintball exercises. You’ll also note that they are wearing helmets and face protectors just like those seen on other paintball ranges, but not something you’d see in a combat arena. No one trains with paintballs, and if you think about it, you’ll know why.

For those who would to see much more about all this, visit http:Kalisanidiot.blogspot.com. There you’ll find more evidence that Kal played his wargames in Prague and additional information about his activities.

The real reason I wanted to go through this has nothing to do with Kal’s claims that he is some sort of soldier, that he is a colonel in some mythical organization, but because he had the audacity to label Jesse Marcel, Sr., a liar. This from a man who can’t even keep it straight that he is married with a genius son or so he has said.

Kal, in another rant, said, "... I also was the first to publish Maj Jesse Marcel's military file which PROVES he was a LIAR — and yes, about Roswell. Since Marcel lied, the very nature of this dynamic ELIMINATES Roswell as being ‘ET.’"

"FACT: Marcel said he was a pilot. He said he flew the wreckage to Texas. Marcel was NEVER a pilot."

Truth: Marcel said he had flown as a pilot, not that he was one which is not quite the same thing. I can say that I flew as a helicopter doorgunner while in Vietnam because I did, but I was never rated as a doorgunner. We sometimes did things like that to learn about other aspects of our mission.

Marcel didn’t say that he flew the UFO wreckage to Texas. That came from Walter Haut, the public information officer, who regretted the line saying Marcel flew the stuff to Fort Worth. What he meant was that Marcel had escorted the wreckage to Fort Worth. So Marcel is in the clear on that.

Kal said of Marcel, "He said he had five air medals. He had two." (Which, BTW, is two more than Kal has.)

Given the nature of the interview in which this surfaced, I’m not sure that Marcel said he had five air medals. That might have been an assumption by Bob Pratt who recorded the interview and then transcribed it. The transcription is sometimes confusing and I asked Pratt if he still had the tape so that we might clarify these issues, but he had long since reused it.

We have found citations for the two air medals and I even went to the unit history in an attempt to discover additional citations but failed. I will note that my own military records were only recently updated to reflect the number of air medals that I had been awarded. Other decorations are not on my "official" record, though I do have the citations. So this is really a "So what?"

Kal, in his rant continuned, "He said he crashed off the coast neat [sic] Australia and was the only survivor. He was NEVER in any ‘plane’ crash and no one was killed."

I’m not sure what Kal means here but Marcel did say that he was in an aircraft shot down off Port Moresby, which, I suppose you could say was the coast of Australia, but he never said he was the only survivor. This comes about because of a comma.

Pratt, in his interview, wrote of Marcel’s answers, "I got shot down one time, my third mission, out of Port Moresby [Pratt inserted in parens] (everybody survive) [and Marcel answered] all but one crashed into a mountain."

This then is confusing. By adding a comma, I change the meaning. Pratt asks, "Everyone survive?"

And Marcel said, "All, but one crashed into a mountain." This suggests that everyone survived except one unfortunate airman who died when he hit a mountain.

Or Marcel said, "All but one crashed into a mountain." This means that everyone, with one exception, died when they hit the mountain. Either way, Marcel made no claim of being the sole survivor and Kal is flat wrong on this.

Kal then wrote, "He said he had a Bachelor's Degree in Physics from George Washington University. I was the ONLY UFO researcher to bother checking this."

This is not true. I actually checked (as did Robert Todd) with each of the universities that Marcel said he had attended, going so far as to inquire if there were any special programs in the 1940s, during the war, that would allow a soldier to attend some classes off campus and earn college credits. GWU told me that they did have some programs like that, but, unfortunately for us, Marcel’s name turns up on no rosters.

Kal said, "Marcel NEVER went to GWU."

And here, Kal has a point. The part of the paragraph in which Marcel made this claim is rather jumbled and unclear, but it does seem to indicate that Marcel told Pratt this. When I talked to Pratt, he had no memory of this specific. And this is apparently the only place that Marcel made such a claim, but it is untrue.Kal claimed that "Marcel said he retired from the AF because they had kept him so busy especially after he wrote the very report that Harry Truman read on TV re the Soviets exploding their first A Bomb."

Marcel said that he had been in the service for eight and a half years as well as the National Guard and felt he had a duty to his family, which is not what Kal said here.

He didn’t say that Truman read his report on TV, but read it on the air, which is not the same thing. Yes, it’s splitting a fine hair, but one that Kal would be quick to split if the situation was different.Kal continues his rant, writing, "Truman NEVER READ ANY SUCH REPORT on TV. Marcel was also NOT the author. The fact is, Project Mogul was as classified as the ABomb project during WW II. It was one of our top secrets."

We know that Truman didn’t read a report on TV, but on the radio, so Kal is wrong. We also know that Project Mogul came into existence after World War II so Kal is wrong here. The Mogul project in New Mexico was not classified as one of our top secrets. In fact, pictures of Mogul arrays appear in newspapers on July 10, 1947; Dr. Albert Crary, the leader of the project used the term "Mogul" in his personal, unclassified diary; and it was only the purpose, that is to spy on the Soviets, that was classified. The skeptics have been getting this wrong for years.Kal said, "Marcel did NOT have a ‘need to know’ and the term ‘flying disc’ did NOT mean ‘ET’ back then, but likely Russian."

Actually they were also called flying saucers, which Kal for some reason can’t comprehend, and one of the theories was that they were interplanetary (as opposed to interstellar), most likely from Mars... or that they might be Soviet.Kal tells us, via Facebook, "If you can disprove it, I will admit I was wrong, no problem. I'll also refund your money [if you bought his book]. Please let me know what you think of my book, I will revise it later, but fighting against Islamofascism is more important to me..."

Well, I proved that a number of Kal’s claims were wrong and I’ll wait for his clarification, but I doubt I’ll ever get it.

I also await the promised lawsuits that have never arrived.

I agreed to three debates... Kal agreed to one and then bailed at the last minute.

I await the KPMG audit of my work that was supposed to be published three years ago... but no such audit was ever undertaken.

I await proof of his 500 (yes five hundred) book deal... or that he will publish any book in the near future.

I await his apology for claiming that there were no black sergeants at Roswell in 1947 when there were, at least, 24.

I await his apology for suggesting that Mack Brazel’s picture never appeared on the front page of any newspaper in July 1947.

I await his apology for claiming that Jesse Marcel, Sr. wouldn’t have use the term flying saucer in 1947 because, according to Kal, that term hadn’t been invented... though the front paper of the Roswell Daily Record said, "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer...

And I wait his apology for calling me a coward and worse at almost the same time claiming he respects all those who served their nation in a combat role.

I could go on, but I believe the point is made.

What set this off was that a guy, Kal, lying about his "wargames" on the Pakistani border would call a man who served in uniform, who was decorated in World War II, who was a real colonel, albeit, a lieutenant colonel, a liar. Who really is the bigger liar here... the man masquerading as a colonel in a pretend organization or the man who might have embellished his educational background, something Kal also does... how goes that Ph.D. Kal?

173 comments:

Kevin:I found Kal K.Korff's Roswell book quite satisfactory & convincing. But then, as a skeptic, I would.

About 3 years ago he was promoting some 7 or 8 new books delving deeper into the subject, including one by a female investigator friend of his (in the Czech Republic I believe). As far as I know none of these books ever materialised. Do you know anything about them, or were they all in his mind?

As to his lies, lies and more lies since then, maybe he has become, shall we say, of unsound mind, and all his imagined exploits in foreign lands are part of this affliction. I once remarked, somewhere, that his initials KKK were familiar as the intials of something else. I expect you can figure out what.

That book was filled with distortions, confusions, half-truths, inaccurate information, and lies. He confused the testimony of Edwin Easley, Curry Holden and Sheridan Cavitt, using Cavitt's statements about not being in Roswell in 1947 to discredit Easley. He quoted Easley's family, using information that came from Holden's family about him.

He made up sources to validate his claims, but didn't seem to comprehend the most basic concepts. He claimed that an Air Force historian at the Pentagon had told him the Army was segregated in 1947, not understanding that it meant the black soldiers were in their own units and that one such squadron was based in Roswell...

I could go on, but you found the book quite satisfactory and convincing... which tells me you don't bother to critique books that support your ideas and theories but accept them at face value.

I much prefer Karl Pflock's book, though it suffers from some of the same problems as does korff's. In fact, Pflock quoted Korff about Lydia Sleppy's teletype message, which had he, Pflock, read the affidavit in his own book would have known that Korff's analysis was wrong.

But thanks, CDA, for the clarification of your position and the insight into your belief structures.

BTW: The promotion of that series of books was just another of the misrepresentations (read lies here) that he has engaged in for a decade or so.

In what respect was Korff's analysis of the Lydia Sleppy affair wrong? Do you really believe her attempted teletype was interrupted by the FBI?

Korff's book was far from perfect, Pflock's book was certainly better. Where in the ranking do you think your books come?

Lydia's story is one of those that has got embellished with time, ever since Friedman first met her in 1974. She never mentioned the FBI originally. She did not even remember the date (Shades of Marcel!). Korff's analysis that it was NOT the FBI is quite satisfactory for me. Can you demonstrate that, assuming she was indeed interrupted, it was the FBI that did it?

Korff said he talked to someone at the Dallas office of the FBI but provided no name for verification.

It would have been possible for the FBI to tap the phone lines going into the AP offices so that they wouldn't have to tap the phone lines of each radio station or newspaper.

Korff made a big deal about them not being able to interrupt a transmission, but Sleppy, in her affidavit and in her 1990s interview with Friedman mentioned that a bell would signal an incoming transmission so that her outgoing message could have been interrupted as she said.

The FBI appeared in the story in the 1990s and I don't know who introduced it... but her story, other than the FBI remained consistent. In other words, there is no reason to reject the core of her story, especially since she had been telling it since the 1970s, before Marcel said anything to UFO researchers.

Besides, the point of this post was to show that Korff was quick to label real soldiers as liars and cowards when he is a much bigger liar, has never heard a shot fired in anger, or served with any real military, paramilitary or police organization.

You seem to think there is something valuable in Korff's book, but it is so full of distortions, mistakes, misrepresentations, and attacks on others that it is virtually worthless.

I much perfer Karl's book, or that by Phil Klass. Both are imperfect, but I suspect that both were attempting to be honest in their books. They each began from the premise that nothing alien fell so that anyone who suggested otherwise was either lying, mistaken, deluded, or suffering from false memories... unless, of course, that person happened to be of a mind that nothing alien fell. Then, they were telling the truth and their memories unclouded.

That anyone could believe that Korff has anything of importance to say about Roswell is laughable. Anything of consequencee that might have slipped into his book can be found in other, much more reliable sources. Your defense of his book is interesting and revealing... but you really should find better source material.

Korff advises to reject everything Marcel said because Korff said Marcel lied... Following that logic, I can reject everything that Korff says because Korff lied... and I haven't even mentioned Kurt Peters.

Really CDA, is this _particular_ question remotely germane to the discussion, at all, or remotely germane, do you think a comparison between Korff and Dr. Randle in any way supports your demonstrably flawed position? Moreover, where does your ready support for Korff, among _other_ ridiculous and revoltingly rapacious persons place _you_ in a "ranking," eh?

Kevin:OK we can concede that Korff is highly unstable and paranoid. When this 'disease' began, I do not know. I don't think he was in that condition when he wrote his Roswell & Billy Meier books, but I agree his current state casts a deep cloud over the quality of his earlier writings.

Re Lydia Sleppy, if the FBI truly interrupted her teletype, where were they when all those other teletypes were whizzing back and forth in New Mexico (the ones Frank Joyce retrieved)? The whole 'FBI interruption' story is a fable, concocted later, after being interviewed too often by credulous ET proponents.

Mr Alfred Lehmberg:

Your words of wisdom are appreciated (some of them). Neither you nor I have written any UFO books, on Roswell or anything else. Therefore we do not occupy any position in the "rankings". As to where you and I stand in our utterances on this forum, that is for others to decide.

___"Neither you nor I have written any UFO books, on Roswell or anything else. Therefore we do not occupy any position in the "rankings"."

Apropos of Zilch leavened with a meaningless argument frame. When was this ever about you and I?

___"As to where you and I stand in our utterances on this forum, that is for others to decide."

Apropos of nada and astonished at the continued inexplicable argument frame. "Our utterances"? What _are_ you getting at?

Again, what do you say about the meanings of statements _you've_ made, pronouncements _you've_ given, and proclamations _you've_ uttered?

"I found Kal K.Korff's Roswell book quite satisfactory & convincing. But then, as a skeptic, I would."

Well, do you see the least thing wrong with the above statement? Could it be, in your opinion, the pronouncement of a two-color ideologue, and does it, perhaps, even provide for the dismissal of a point subsequently submitted?

I suspect that it is fair to ask if this _particular_ question is remotely germane to the discussion, at all, or remotely germane, does a comparison between Korff and Dr. Randle in any way support what seems to be your position, already demonstrably flawed?

Moreover, and again, where does your ready support for Korff, among _other_ Ridiculous and Revoltingly Rapacious persons place _you_ in a "ranking," eh?

Choosing to answer at all, please refrain from any insincere platitudes or irrelevant re-visioning of history in this thread to involve me in what may yet prove to be your ill-conceived and not well thought out, if revealing performance in same, eh?

CDA: "Lydia's story is one of those that has got embellished with time, ever since Friedman first met her in 1974. She never mentioned the FBI originally".

The 1974 story was presented as hearsay. Since Ms Sleppy was not quoted in it, we cannot say what her words were to Friedman. We only have what he said she said. Hearsay. So, you cannot claim she "embellished" her story from then to whenever she is quoted in her own words.

In other words to claim "She never mentioned the FBI originally" is to claim something you cannot know.

Claiming that any statement attributed to someone is indistinguishable from a quotation, lies at the heart of much of the memory rhetoric of skeptics, along with the notion that every statement is complete and on point, as if they'd been coached by lawyers, and as if it were stated under oath (legalistic rigamarole that infects all these discussions), so that one can say they "embellished" or "changed their story", as if it were a sworn to coached statement, rather than a matter of recollection.

Like the USAF Roswell Report's sleight-of-hand (aka 'hand-jive') regarding the RAAF press release, so also is the "FBI" and "The Switch" the hand-jive of skeptics. What is important is the phone call, not the teletype.

"She did not even remember the date (Shades of Marcel!)."

Do you mean in her affidavit "(5) In early July 1947..."? Shades of nearly about every affidavit I've read.

What I find interesting in her affidavit are these "The call came in before noon." and "but we never put it on the wire because we had been scooped by the papers"

This structure (something earlier that day (usually 'noon') and something a bit later) is common to all the stories from the Roswell news media -- Joyce at KFGL, Walsh at KSWS, McQuiddy at the Morning Dispatch.

I cannot find any witness from the Daily Record who spoke to Haut on that day.

I ask Kevin to cite a witness to any contact with Haut about the press release at the Daily Record. I cannot find one.

You are right. This post was never "about you and I". But have you noticed how so often the subject under discussion soon strays a lot from the original topic?

I hereby cease further discourse on this point.

To Don:

You can see Lydia Sleppy's original remarks, as told to Stan Friedman, in SAGA Magazine, winter 1974 (Article by Friedman & B. Ann Slate). There was no mention of the FBI, and her only memory of the date was "late 1940s". Likewise, the ROSWELL INCIDENT, when discussing the Sleppy affair, does not mention the FBI either. So when did the FBI first enter the scene?

I am not saying Lydia embellished the story herself, but somehow, through retelling and repeated interviewing, the FBI got 'involved'. How?

I have a good idea, but obviously it does not constitute proof. I am saying that if the FBI did interrupt her teletype (presumably for security reasons), then you would expect them to have done the same for all such teletypes on that afternoon. But we have plenty of these, retained by Frank Joyce. No such interrupts or implied threats on these, were there?

Therefore, like Kal Korff, I claim the so-called 'FBI interruption' never happened, and that the interruption was caused by something else, probably something trivial or even a technical blip.

She did not at first remember the date. Moore and Friedman 'helped' her over this once they learned it themselves (and got it wrong by one day in their book!). Maybe they also helped her 'remember' the FBI.

Stories DO get embellished, but we cannot always tell who is responsible for this.

She only began her teletype because she and her manager McBoyle had received Haut's press release over the wires. So maybe you are right, we should establish why this wire ever went out.

Well -- there you have it then. The consequences of moving out of comfort zones only presumed to be comfortably held, eh. It remains you make my point.

See, who was the _first_ to stray and even factor in a little of the ever popular ad hominum, too.

"Where in the ranking do your books come in," thinly suggests that Randle pales in comparison to both the late Mr. Pflock and the vainglorious and faux-expatriate "Triple K." Moreover, you are ignorant; however, that you argue, I submit, apples, oranges, and limes well passed a sell-by date.

See, say what you want about Pflock, he was a denier. Korff is a contriving, contentious, contemptuous, conniving, and contemptible con-man, in my opinion of course, though I don't share that opinion alone. Anything Paul Kimball and I can agree on is fact, I suspect.

With all apology to the embarrassed assessed, Randle, on the other hand is a bona fide researcher of unquestioned character and consistent intelligence willing to support the position unpopular to some because that's where the data seems to lead.

You would seemingly undercut the preceding to flog the conjecture that the three persons you iterate are remotely considerable on the same field at all... when they have never been on the same field, ever. You do Randle a disservice, imo, and shouldn't get to slide by entirely unchallenged, is all. Posted.

"She only began her teletype because she and her manager McBoyle had received Haut's press release over the wires. So maybe you are right, we should establish why this wire ever went out."

I don't really follow the above. Which wire? McBoyle was in Roswell at KSWS. So was George Walsh. The story is Walsh dictated the press release to someone (he thought Jason Kellahin (who didn't recall)) at the Albuquerque AP office. The wire went out at 2:26pm. For all I know, Walsh and McBoyle had desks next to each other and played golf together on weekends.

The significance of Ms Sleppy's story is its confirmation of the "missing time" (the 2 1/2 hours between the first known wire story and the around "noon" statements (including the RDR's headline story) that occurs in the stories about the Roswell news media's reception of the RAAF press release.

I think it is, in skeptic-talk, "uncontaminated" -- not only Sleppy, but the others, as well. Even the Roswell investigators could not "infect" witnesses with it because they were unaware of it.

"But we have strayed, yet again, from Kevin's original posting."

I don't know anything about Korff. What has been described in these posts is what I would expect from someone who characterizes human relationships in terms of 'contamination', 'viral', 'infection' and so on. It is 'Borderline Personality Disorder' stuff.

Although CDA has again managed to divert the discussion from the lies told by Kal Korff and his smearing of various soldiers who served in combat environments while claiming that he is some sort of officer in some sort of organization that only exists in his brain, I will go over this Lydia Sleppy story once more.

The SAGA magazine article said, in its entirety, ...[I]n New Mexico, a woman with a responsible position at a radio station received a call from the station manager. He had been out checking reports of a UFO which had crashed in a field and was trying to track down the rumor that pieces of the object were supposedly stored in a local barn. In his excited call to the newsroom, the station manager verified the UFO crash report, and also claimed he had seen metallic pieces of the UFO being carried into a waiting Air Force plane which was destined for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

"As the woman began typing out the fantastic news item over the teletype to their other two radio stations, a line appeared in the middle of her text, tapped in from somewhere, with the official order: ‘Do not continue this transmission.’”

Fairly straight forward without mention of the FBI. Clearly, if the transmission was interrupted and she was instructed to cease the transmission, it was because of the specific information in this specific transmission. The others, such as that Frank Joyce saved, did not related to finding the actual craft, which, according to Johnny McBoyle, was what he was dictating to Sleppy as she typed in the story.

Korff’s claim was that there was no way for the transmission to be interrupted, a claim that Karl Pflock also made. Sleppy explained in her affidavit, printed in Karl’s book, that there was a bell that signaled incoming messages. As Karl wrote, “If a machine was set to send, it could not receive an incoming message. A bell would ring to alert someone to switch over to receive.” Sleppy, in her affidavit explained this as well. When the bell rang, Sleppy would flip the switch, so there was a way to receive an incoming message.

Korff said the FBI, according him, and without bothering to tell us which FBI agent made these statements to him, wouldn’t have been in a position to monitor any news transmissions. The agent allegedly said, “You better believe... [ellipses in original] that with the way J. Edgar Hoover ran things back then someone would have made a report on this. Hell, we’ve got stuff here on file that goes back to the bureau’s very first day of existence.”

But this, of course, does not tell us what might have been hiding in the records in Washington, D.C., records to which this agent might not have had access. And this is based on the assumption that the Dallas office would be the one involved, probably because of its involvement in the story after Marcel escorted material to Fort Worth.

Karl noted that while such monitoring would be easy today, in the 1940s, it would have been impossible. Which is, of course, his opinion and overlooks the fact that the monitoring didn’t have to be done at each station, but at the hub of all the reports. In other words, the lines into the AP would be where the tap would have been inserted, if such a tap existed.

Or that, given that the news about this event was all coming out of New Mexico, the tapping of specific stations would have been simple, especially remembering that Merle Tucker owned stations in Albuquerque and Roswell. Only a couple of taps would have been needed.

The point is that Korff, and Karl, dismissed the Sleppy testimony because of false assumptions. It is a nice way to delete it but they haven’t really dealt with it. The core of the story did not shift. It is only the FBI connection that is in dispute and even if the FBI had no role in this, the core of the story has not been successfully challenged.

Can we now move beyond this? We’re not going to agree, ever... and I suspect if we came up with an FBI file, some would find reason to reject the information.

And it seems that we all agree that Korff is unreliable. It is interesting that CDA attempts to suggest that when Korff wrote his Roswell book, he was more reliable than he is today, and if that is the case, couldn’t we also say that Sleppy, when she made her original statements was more reliable than she was when she said the FBI interrupted the transmission... and we haven’t even considered the possibility that some other agency used the FBI name as a way of intimidating Sleppy and the radio station crew.

You have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Korff has been making these outrageous claims for years. I mentioned his claim of having signed a 500 book deal... no publisher named. The only website that ever mentioned his super model pal, who, BTW, is an operative in his mythical organization was traced back to Korff.

He claimed he had an IQ of 219 but doesn't know the difference between utter and udder.

If you wish to see a compendium of his claims check out Kalisanidiot.blogspot.com. They have been cataloging his stories for several years.

Re Lydia Sleppy, if the FBI truly interrupted her teletype, where were they when all those other teletypes were whizzing back and forth in New Mexico (the ones Frank Joyce retrieved)? The whole 'FBI interruption' story is a fable, concocted later, after being interviewed too often by credulous ET proponents.

Here we have yet another example of a cda strawman argument, comparing the sensational teletype that Lydia Sleppy said they tried to get out (reporter on the scene, John McBoyle, actually seeing the crushed disc and perhaps hearing of bodies being recovered) to LATER ones on the newswire AFTER the base had put out its ambiguous press release with not much detail to the news media and began taking control of what was reported.

Other later teletypes, e.g., would have Gen. Ramey casting doubt on the "flying disc" and instead opining that he thought it a weather device, followed, of course, by the final official military announcment that it was just a weather balloon with attached radar target.

So there was a classic bait and switch going on. First give some credence to the "rumor" of the flying disc, then quickly ridicule it with the weather balloon story. It's a psychological ploy wherein people feel they have been played for suckers, and nobody likes being a sucker, especially more than once. Therefore any other flying disc will be automatically dismissed in the minds of much of the public as more nonsense akin to the Roswell "weather balloon".

That the military was running a debunkery campaign was explicitly stated in the opening sentence of the UP Roswell story the next day: "Reports of flying saucers whizzing through the sky fell off sharply today as the Army and Navy began a concentrated campaign to stop the rumors.

Any reason to censor these later teletypes? No, of course not. They were exactly what they wanted the public to hear.

But McBoyle's story was something else: an eyewitness who reported being taken to the Foster Ranch by Brazel himself. Another part of the story is that Brazel had either towed the disc or a large piece of it to a coral using a tractor. That's one heavy "radar target" to require a tractor tow.

Sleppy's story also has some corroboration from people she was working with at the time, such as her station manager Karl Lambertz, who talked to McBoyle afterward, and Sleppy and McBoyle's boss, Merle Tucker.

There are various versions of the Sleppy story in the different Roswell books and in Sleppy's affidavit. The one thing they ALL have in common is that McBoyle actually saw the crashed object and described it as looking like a crushed dishpan.

McBoyle when later interviewed shortly before his death also confirmed seeing the object and described it as 25-30 feet long and impacted in a slope.

Which is interesting since Ramey and the Pentagon were also putting out the story that the "boxkite" in Ramey's office if reconstructed would have been about 25 feet across. Yet another Roswell "coincidence."

How could Ramey possibly mistake a 4-foot radar target weighing a total of only a few ounces with an object 25 feet across? The answer is he couldn't. Either this description was a huge slip-up on his part, or, I think more likely, damage control in case the McBoyle/Sleppy story DID manage to get into the news.

DR:Who is the person who interviewed McBoyle shortly before his death, and who extracted an admission from him that he (McBoyle) saw the object and that it was 25-30 feet long?

I ask because every book I have read that mentions McBoyle says he refused to speak about the incident and denied it ever happened. Pflock repeats this in his book, p. 174.

By the time THE ROSWELL INCIDENT was published, McBoyle was quoted, by Sleppy, as not only having seen the object loaded on a plane but as saying little bodies were loaded as well!

Question: How did McBoyle, a civilian, get the privilege of seeing the object loaded onto a plane? This could only have occurred at Walker Field. Did McBoyle have some special security clearance to view the UFO? And how did he learn about the bodies?

See how the story has 'improved'? There was no FBI yet - that was still to come.

There is nothing first-hand from McBoyle that I have seen, only second-hand accounts, and every one says McBoyle denied the whole story.

So the FBI interrupted Lydia's teletype because she was about to break a huge story, but let other teletypes on the same day go through because there was no real story to them? And how do you know it was a huge story anyway? Is there any hard evidence to show this? Answer: of course not, only the testimony of one person, whose manager always denied the tale.

So who extracted the admission from him?

I sincerely hope that this is not another death-bed confession. We have had quite enough of these, thank you.

At the risk of having someone point out a double standard, Gilles, I believe your comments are bordering on the unacceptable. David has gone a long way to prove his interpetation of the of the Ramey memo is accurate. He is arguing from a point of view that he believes to be true. Please tone down the rhetoric...

And yes, I have gone after Korff, but the difference is Korff changes his mind with the wind, bases his conclusions on what he wishes were facts and presents evidence that is invented... Such as my saying Bill Brazel saw a picture of his father in an Albuquerque newspaper when he had just read the paragraph in which I said he had seen a story about his father.

Yes, this might be a fine hair to split, but hey, it's my blog and I can split if I want to...

CDA "So the FBI interrupted Lydia's teletype because she was about to break a huge story, but let other teletypes on the same day go through because there was no real story to them?"

Well, yes, that would be a reason.

What happened around "noon" on July 8 in Roswell?

It wasn't the distribution of the press release, I don't think, unless you can think of a reason why three independent media sat on it until about the same moment in time and then in near unison decided to publish the story.

What might have happened around noon was a unauthorized leak, or maybe Joyce and McBoyle were on to the story already.

Maybe what was "announced at noon today" was in a news at noon broadcast from one or both stations.

The last paragraph of the press release is in the past tense. According to Shirkey, the plane to take Marcel and the package to Ft Worth was on the runway at 2pm. The distribution of the press release might have been synced to that. The story is published at 2:26 by KSWS-AP, 2:41 (at least) by KGFL-UP, and according to the Albuquerque Journal, the Daily Record was on the street at 3pm.

The scenario here is that an attempt to publish the story prematurely would be intercepted -- energetically if it contained information the AAF didn't want publicized, which would be anything resembling a flying disk.

"David has gone a long way to prove his interpetation of the of the Ramey memo is accurate. He is arguing from a point of view that he believes to be true. Please tone down the rhetoric..."

I'm sorry Kevin. It seems I missed something. But you will help me?

I missed a scientist point or an article made by David Rudiak concerning the "Ramey memo"? (or Roswell). Something in a "peer-review"?

Did David write an article peer reviewed? Or main-stream? Regarding his analysis of the "Ramey memo" chimeria?

David is postulating something revolutioning Sciences! Go David!

Where is that article? David Rudiak have proved we have recovered an alien craft and ET bodies... That's writed in the memo he reads with his eyes! No scientific article?There is not? Hooo, it is in David Rudiak site... That's ufology..

"I missed a scientist point or an article made by David Rudiak concerning the "Ramey memo"? (or Roswell). Something in a "peer-review"?"

Har! We must all pause for squirty giggles!

Forgetting for a moment you quote as an authority that which dares to pronounce on something it largely refuses to investigate, the height of fundamentalist idiocy, you damn the adjacent intrepid for daring to to do the work the aforementioned have just been too cowardly complacent to do. Your, point, Sir, is not made.

Part 1:Gilles hypocritically and snidely wrote:I missed a scientist point or an article made by David Rudiak concerning the "Ramey memo"? (or Roswell). Something in a "peer-review"? Did David write an article peer reviewed? Or main-stream? Regarding his analysis of the "Ramey memo" chimeria? David is postulating something revolutioning Sciences! Go David!

Maybe I missed something. Has Gilles published his Mogul "proofs" in some peer reviewed or main stream scientific journal, or is it all self-published? Oh, I see.

So as usual he is being a hypocrite in his "criticisms". More hypocrisy comes when Gilles has nothing really to argue, so he instead ridicules me as a diversion, as he does here, then complains about my "ad hominem" attacks in response.

And as noted many times before on various Kevin blogs, even more Gilles hypocrisy comes when he dismisses EVERY "pro-Roswell" witness as unreliable because of "retrospective falsification", "witness contamination", decades-old memory problems, etc. Remarkably these psycho-social maladies he loves to argue NEVER afflict any of the "pro-Mogul" witnesses he cites.

In the meantime, "pro-Roswell" researchers are all "believers" suffering from the fanatical or gullible "will to believe", thus further suffering from the psycho-social malady of “hypothesis verification bias”. Because of this, they always insidiously contaminate witnesses with Svengali-like powers into believing in flying saucer crashes. Ridiculing buzz words like these are, of course, ad hominem attacks in themselves, but only the “believers” like me are guilty of such behavior.

Gilles, naturally, also believes he suffers from none of these psycho-social “believer” maladies, when he is really a poster boy for them. E.g., back to the comments section of Kevin's previous blog (UFO Records and the Public Record) where I have just posted a response to another of Gilles' Mogul Flight #4 "proofs" and see how Gilles has just totally invented "facts" out of thin air to try to save his precious Flight #4.

I had challenged him to present actual documented proof that there ever was a Flight #4, since all we have is a single line from diary instead saying a balloon flight was "canceled" because of clouds and Mogul records have a blank in the numbered Mogul sequence, just as for other "canceled" flights like #2, #3, and #9. (#2 and #9 are known for a fact never to have left the ground, but watch below how Gilles magically claims he can bring even these back to life.)

Part 2:Gilles can’t prove there was a Flight #4, since there is nothing there in the historical records. So instead what Gilles does is invent facts and create another diversion. He claims canceled flights really did go up, but they were not recorded because allegedly they had no flight data. But this is all confabulation on his part. All launched Moguls were tracked, all had some sort of flight data, and all were recorded if they actually flew, even the abysmal failures. This is proven by the actual Mogul records. On the other hand, if they never went up, there are blanks in the numbered sequence, because, obviously, there really was no flight data.

But Gilles has invented some fantastic rationalizations, some bordering on flagrant lying or grand self-delusion, to "explain" why Flight #4 could go up and yet they would have no record of it in Mogul report and flight summaries. You see, these “canceled” flights were not recorded and magically became “service flights” (which were something else entirely, but never mind) because allegedly they had no flight data to record. The reason they had no flight data, says Gilles, is because none of the tracking systems (but only on these flights) was capable of getting a complete set of data, or they went out of range of the tracking systems so the data was incomplete, so they just threw out the entire flight instead of using the partial tracking data they had. Really, that is his argument!

These statements by Gilles are contradicted by the claims of Charles Moore and his "unassailable" “pro-Mogul” 40+-year-old memories that they DID track the mythical #4 both with radar and theodolite plus a chase plane.

It is also contradicted by Mogul records of actual flights. The most interesting of these was Flight #17 three months later that flew in the exact same direction that Moore claimed for #4 (passing over the same “exotic” landmarks that the infallible Moore claimed exclusive to #4), yet they had none of the tracking problems that Gilles fantasizes for #4.

Of course if any of this were true, there would have been very few recorded Mogul flights, because most went well beyond tracking range, whatever tracking they used, and the data was necessarily incomplete. Few had complete tracking from launch to crash point. But Gilles, with his keen scientific mind (unlike the “believers”), fails to see just how irrational or illogical his argument really is, never mind the fantasy rationales he invents to get him there.

Maybe Gilles would like to publish his latest Mogul Flight #4 “proof” in a main-stream, peer-reviewed scientific journal? Go Gilles!

Bill Moore, in THE ROSWELL INCIDENT, says that Lydia Sleppy started typing her message at 4PM on July 7. Granted that Moore later altered the date to July 8, what does this say about the accuracy of Lydia's story?

If it was at 4PM it kills your idea at once, since the press release had gone out by then. But is 4PM wrong? If it is, how do you know? Lydia simply could NOT recall the date or time, and that is about all that can be said. Any later statements by her are as dubious and error prone as her original one.

The upshot of this is that we simply DO NOT KNOW when Lydia began her message. There is no hard evidence to back it up.

CDA, what Moore said is something I keep around in case information breaks that way, but until then, I'll take Sleppy's own words which are "The call came in before noon" and "we never put it on the wire because we had been scooped by the papers".

"Granted that Moore later altered the date to July 8, what does this say about the accuracy of Lydia's story?"

Nothing. It tells me something about Moore, though -- I realize that by "the story" you mean something different than I do.

"The upshot of this is that we simply DO NOT KNOW when Lydia began her message. There is no hard evidence to back it up."

I'm not a judge or a prosecutor. I'm not looking for "hard evidence". I don't expect people to have accurate total recall decades after an event, and I have no idea what the circumstances were for any interview of her. In my experience interviewing Vietnam combat vets for an oral history project, and also for the Agent Orange project, "set" and "setting" were important and I weigh it, if I can determine it. Peoples' recollection tends to be better, for example, in their own home rather than say a motel room, tavern, or restaurant.

No one could be more critical of the inattention of the Roswell investigators to the press release story, and their raiders of the lost ark sort of 'archeology', than I am. Future students of the Roswell incident will have to wade through the shards of broken pottery and tablets they've left in a jumble for us...assuming their stuff won't be tipped into the trash pit after they are dead.

For myself, their inattention to the circumstances of the press release has a downside and an upside. The downside is the investigators (including Kevin, see Chapter 7 of "The Truth About...etc") did not have much interest in it. They, like everyone, were interested in the 'macguffin' (there's a Wikipedia entry, if the term is not familiar) or what the press release was about. So, they did not cross compare the stories, nor did they critique them, or ask follow up questions. It was sufficient for their interests that the press release existed is all.

The upside is that, although the information is meagre, it is not so trampled upon by them as are the things they were interested in.

As Kevin wrote in another discussion recently everyone has an "agenda", but because of their inattention to minor things, there is very little their agendas could alter in the material I'm intersted in because they mostly ignored it.

My proof-of-concept is that none of them appear to have verified Haut's story that he delivered a press release to the Daily Record. Few investigators have responded to my query about it (they don't know). Kevin has not yet done so.

That's how dismal the investigations were regarding the press release.

I do not consider Lydia Sleppy's story to have any importance. I only brought it up because Korff discredited it in his book, and the original topic on this post was to do with Korff and his subsequent lies, etc.

I happen to believe that whatever Korff's mental state is now, or whatever lies he told in the past, his analysis of the Sleppy teletype affair is correct.

But my whole point is that Sleppy's tale cannot be relied on.She first related it, as far as we know, in 1974 to a highly pro-ETHer (Friedman) and it has been considerably embellished ever since, with false dates, dubious times, dubious facts, faulty second-hand recall, and so on. The FBI suddenly 'appeared' in her tale but nobody knows how or why. (I have my own idea).

She wrote an affidavit in 1993 but by then she had certainly been over-exposed to the Roswell story through repeated interviews.

David Rudiak tells us that her boss, McBoyle, late in life, finally relented and 'revealed' all to someone. DR has not yet said who this was. Every book and article I have seen says explicitly that McBoyle denied the Sleppy affair ever occurred, or at least occurred as she told it. So where does that leave us?

Your own interest is to link it in time with Haut's press release. This link may have some value, but I am not persuaded that it has.

Where, precisely, do you think this is taking us? And are you able to establish anything useful out of it? I doubt it.

Since you believe the content of the press release, not the timeline of the information as it was published, not the opinions of those who received it in 1947, nor the reactions of those who read it are important, just what do you want?

I didn't answer your question because I talked to no one at the Roswell Daily Record who worked there in 1947. The best we could do was Walter Haut's wife, Pete, who had a connection to the newspaper.

I did talk to Art McQuiddy, George Walsh, Jud Roberts, Johnny McBoyle (oh yes, I talked to him), Frank Joyce, Jason Kellahin and a couple of others. I noticed that the press release was altered by various newspapers as they gathered their own data and interviewed those they could find. I talked to J. Bond Johnson who so altered his tale time and again that it has become nearly worthless.

We attempted to put together a timeline based on the printed record, what Walter Haut remembered, and the interviews with the various individuals in Roswell.

But all that is for naught because we apparently didn't ask the questions that you wanted asked. Shame on us.

So what little nugget have you undercovered that (a) has relevance to the purpose of this post and (b) is the fact you think is so important that we missed.

Yes, I'm a little annoyed, but only because everyone thinks that we investigators, who financed these investigations out of our own pockets while we attempted to work our "day" jobs, published the best information we had at the time, and updated it as quickly as we could when we found better information rather than follow some path you think important. Just what would you have done...

Sure, there are avenues we didn't follow. I have a large file of leads to follow but haven't had to the time to do so. I followed one lead of a pilot of Air Force One who flew John Kennedy to see the alien bodies... when I finally found him, I learned he was an alternate pilot for Air Force One, he had flow John Kennedy around and he, the pilot, had seen a UFO. Not exactly what I was looking for.

I will note here that the newspapers, which want you to believe they are unbaised and accurate often have their own agendas and that shows up in the spin they put on their stories. They also call people on the telephone, not to learn more, but so they have the local angle in their stories... which explains some of the really inane stuff you see.

So tell me. Just what bit of information are you looking for? Just what would you have done different?

"She first related it, as far as we know, in 1974 to a highly pro-ETHer (Friedman)..."

The importance of her story is that had Friedman not spoken to her there would have been no Roswell story (at least as we know it) and we would not be having this conversation.

Consider everything that Friedman left out of his published story...all identifying information especially 'Roswell', KSWS, and if what Sleppy also said to him was about being scooped by the newspapers, then I assume Friedman was next spending a week with microfilm machines.

We don't know what else Sleppy told him, but we do know what she said later, but that information was not known to him when he first walked in to interview her. Sleppy, rather than Marcel, is the origin of the Roswell story.

Because of their interest in the 'macguffin' what appealed to the advocates was the disk part of the story. It's the 'macguffin' that appeals to skeptics as well as the USAF. Instead, I'm interested in what they marginalize.

"She wrote an affidavit in 1993 but by then she had certainly been over-exposed to the Roswell story through repeated interviews."

What I am interested in is Sleppy being one of five witnesses I'm aware of whose stories circle about the noon/mid-afternoon "missing time". I am not aware of any investigator who followed up on those traces -- if anyone does, please give me the cite to it. If they were unaware of the discrepancy or if they dismissed it as unimportant, then they could not in any way have 'suggested' it to her. The investigators, to my knowledge, never discussed Sleppy in terms of the publication of the press release.

If Korff wrote about it, I'd be interested in reading what he had to say, but I doubt he did.

I haven't read everything about Roswell and would be pleased for any citations.Are you aware of any article about it? A chapter in a book? Besides David noting it on his website, I haven't seen it mentioned.

I'm interested in whatever McBoyle said late in life, too, and, like you, await the citation. I'm interested in anything anyone in the Roswell media had to say. There's not much, though.

"Where, precisely, do you think this is taking us? And are you able to establish anything useful out of it? I doubt it."

I hope to determine what happened around noon in Roswell, involving the radio stations, and probably the newspapers, on July 8, 1947. There is a belief that the press release was distributed at noon. I don't think it was. I think something related to it did happen.

Because there is no one left alive to ask, and because it was not researched while witnesses were still alive, I'm stuck with what statements were taken down and published. But the press release (and the news cycle) are not constituents of the "Roswell myth". They are not susceptible to the vagaries of memory or the diligence of investigators. It is just a matter of disciplined reading without glossing over the reading with what we think we already know. There is no way to take it further short of some documentary discovery.

Kevin: "Since you believe the content of the press release, not the timeline of the information as it was published, not the opinions of those who received it in 1947, nor the reactions of those who read it are important, just what do you want?"

I cannot imagine how you concluded all that.

"So what little nugget have you undercovered that (a) has relevance to the purpose of this post and (b) is the fact you think is so important that we missed."

Well, let's see. That the UP and AP versions can be sourced to the same document because they are structurally identical, but that the Daily Record version cannot. That all three versions glitch at the same point, the transfer of the disc from the civilians to the army. That the deletions in the Daily Record version (or the additions to the UP/AP versions) were of a piece, that they are not random or due to space considerations (unless the King Carol story was the Brad and Jenn of the paper's readers) -- and that that portion is, in the AP full quotation version, stylistically different than the rest. You're a novelist. What do you make of it?

"I noticed that the press release was altered by various newspapers as they gathered their own data and interviewed those they could find."

I've studied the texts and think I can source some of the additions. Who they could find was limited with the phone lines tied up and no outside reporters in Roswell. The misspellings rampant in the news stories tell a tale, as well.

Did you ask McQuiddy why he was describing a conversation with Haut that could not have occured at the time he said it did? Did you ask Walsh what he thought of McBoyle's failed attempt to get the story to the radio networks? Did you ask Frank Joyce where he got the "blue light" story and who the "residents" were?

Did you ever wonder why Brazel went to a sheriff in another county than where he lived? Do you wonder why Wilcox took on an issue outside his jurisdiction? Who was the sheriff of Lincoln county in 1947 and who were his deputies?

All those for starters.

"But all that is for naught because we apparently didn't ask the questions that you wanted asked. Shame on us."

I'm not sure you grasp the time line of the story as we've detailed it because you might be missing a single important bit of information. The Daily Illini, on July 9, 1947, published a story that gave the breakdown of the way this happened by times. Based on that, and other information, also published in newspapers, we know...

The story hit the AP wire at 2:26 pm MST, based on these printed accounts. Walter Haut said that he left the base and drove to the four media outlets in Roswell in some order that he determined (meaning he didn't want to give press releases to the same source first all the time).

This would suggest that one of those sources put it on the wire to AP... which reviewed it and then released it to all its subscribers...

Haut said once he was finished with that, he went home for lunch and then mowed the lawn.

You have the book which lays out all this in order so I'm not going to repeat it here. I will also note that some of the time line is corroborated by a story in the Boston Herald which allows us to validate this time line.

And we have the Chicago new report from ABC's Headline Edition which was broadcast at 10:30 p.m. CST.

We also know that Frank Joyce's station KGFL was UP and they had the story before the AP.

Sleppy's account would have preceded this because she was dealing with Johnny McBoyle, an alleged first hand witness as opposed to someone chasing the story. In other words, McBoyle was not responding to the AP story, but what he learned in Roswell.

And, although Jason Kellahin said they got the call from the AP in the morning, it's quite clear, based on the accounts in the newspapers, that nothing happened outside of New Mexico, prior to noon.

I suspect your frustration is not that we haven't researched this, but that we haven't printed all the information we have.

Kevin:Interesting that you spoke to McBoyle. What did he say to you? Did he confirm Lydia's teletype story or did he simply deny the event ever took place?

Have you any reason to believe that McBoyle revealed anything to anyone late in life (maybe on his deathbed) confirming Lydia's story?

Rather than go through your books again, I would like an answer here, please. Was McBoyle ever a useful witness to you?

I too am a bit mystified by what Don is really getting at, but we all have our foibles. I suspect he is hoping some miracle (i.e. documentation) will suddenly turn up. But then so are you. And so is DR.

cda wrote:David Rudiak tells us that her boss, McBoyle, late in life, finally relented and 'revealed' all to someone. DR has not yet said who this was.

Patience is a virtue. I was getting around to it. (I certainly don't like cda's accusatory and demanding tone, as if I make up my facts, like some people I could mention, who make things up all the time just because they can't believe something is true.)

The source of McBoyle saying the object was 25-30 feet across and impacted in a slope was the second Randle/Schmitt book, and Kevin has just written he DID speak to McBoyle. So as to the accuracy of the McBoyle statement in the book, please direct further inquiries to Kevin.

It is a historical fact from period newspapers, however, that there were statements, either from Ramey and/or the Pentagon that the "boxkite" in Ramey's office would have been 25 feet or 20-25 feet across if reconstructed (depending on source), which is total nonsense given what was actually there (4 foot radar target weighing a few ounces). So where did this size come from and why did they say it?

This later got amended in the Dallas FBI telegram to the balloon (not box-kite) that carried the radar target "hexagonal" radar target being 20 feet across, but even fully extended at high altitude, a typical meteorological balloon would not get nearly that large. And who would talk about "reconstructing" a balloon anyway? So again the size given makes no sense.

And then there are contradictory statements, such as Ramey also being quoted saying he couldn't estimate the size because it was broken into pieces (ABC news radio), but also giving out a "hexagonal" description, which would only remotely apply to an INTACT rawin target in profile viewed over a restricted range of angles. So where did Ramey get the "hexagon" description when the object, as Ramey said, was broken into pieces, and also well before the object was IDed for sure by his weather officer? Ramey must have been a weather balloon equipment whiz, unlike those doofuses at Roswell who confused a few ounces of aluminum foil and balsa wood with what one would expect from a Kenneth Arnold type supersonic flying saucer all over the news.

Part of the Sleppy/McBoyle story was McBoyle saying the "big crumpled dishpan" object he saw had been towed by Brazel off the field and into a shelter.

Two other people independently mentioning the large piece that had been towed were Bill Brazel Jr. and Jesse Marcel. Brazel Jr. said it had been stored in a livestock shed, as reported in the first Randle/Schmitt book.

Marcel's statement came from an interview he did with Leonard Stringfield, where he said Brazel showed him the large piece, which was about 10 feet in diameter. (Reported by both Stringfield and Randle/Schmitt)

The point is these provide further independent corroboration for Sleppy's story. (Just wait, however, for cda and Gilles to jump in with their usual idiotic "witness contamination" proclamations, that this testimony was necessarily planted in the heads of the witnesses by insidious Roswell researchers or by witnesses reading Roswell books or by talking to each other. We've all heard it a thousand times before, no evidence of course, just another arbitrary debunker rationalization to dismiss witness testimony.)

The only major difference I see in these stories is in the size of the object Brazel towed off the field, although it is somewhat unclear as to whether McBoyle's given size description (25-30 feet) referred to the towed object, or some other object.

Regardless of the size, it is impossible to reconcile the towed object with any sort of Mogul balloon crash, in which ALL the equipment, even when intact, typically weighed no more than 50 or 60 pounds.

Kevin: "I'm not sure you grasp the time line of the story as we've detailed it because you might be missing a single important bit of information."

No. I haven't missed it.

"Walter Haut said that he left the base and drove to the four media outlets in Roswell in some order that he determined (meaning he didn't want to give press releases to the same source first all the time)."

The order he determined was KGFL, KSWS, RDR, RMD. The conversation about 'fairness' in McQuiddy's affidavit is the conversation that could not have occurred "a little before noon".

An Albuquerque Journal article about Frank Joyce states that Haut called Joyce to say he was coming over with a press release. George Walsh also states he received a call from Haut. So, we know both radio stations at least had some information in advance of Haut's visit.

The interview of Walsh in the LA Times in 2000 was a retrospective of his career, and Roswell only appears briefly about his early days in radio. He tells a more harmonious story than what is in his 1993 affidavit.

In 2000 he does not say Haut dictated the press release to him which he then dictated to Kellahin (or whomever) in Albuquerque. Instead he says Haut called and said "We've captured a flying saucer" (sound familiar?). The press release will explain everything. But it didn't. All it said was...etc.

It reads like a phone call about the press release preceded the actual distribution of it, at least to the radio stations (and that might be significant).

There's a trace there that an around noon phone call from Haut about the press release and a visit from him with the press release soon after, have a tendency to get merged in recollection. McQuiddy also supports this by having Haut bring him the press release "a little before noon" and thereupon he remonstrates with Haut that because the RMD was last on his list, he hadn't had the chance to compete with Walsh getting the story to AP, which as you note was not on the wire until 2:26.

So, that's three. But there is nothing from the Daily Record. It doesn't help that McQuiddy repeats Haut's order of distribution except he leaves out the Daily Record. It doesn't help either that the Daily Record's version is structurally distinct from the UP and AP versions.

"...that nothing happened outside of New Mexico, prior to noon."

Nothing could have happened before 2:26 except we are told a failed attempt by McBoyle to get the story out. It is possible that Joyce did something similar that got someone's attention, too.

"I suspect your frustration is not that we haven't researched this, but that we haven't printed all the information we have."

We have a saying in my business "Information that cannot be accessed might as well not exist."

Don (Sourcerer) wrote:Did you ask McQuiddy why he was describing a conversation with Haut that could not have occured at the time he said it did? Did you ask Walsh what he thought of McBoyle's failed attempt to get the story to the radio networks? Did you ask Frank Joyce where he got the "blue light" story and who the "residents" were?

Don and I have been discussing the curious differences in how the press release was reported by AP, UP, and the RDR going back to UseNet days, and more recently in emails. I have found it equally intriguing and mystifying.

For the record, I did ask Joyce, the UP stringer, if he knew where the UP item about the "strange blue light" seen by residents near the ranch several days before at 3 am came from. This is in the very first UP teletype saved by Joyce that also carried the press release about 15 minutes after AP first put out their version. (It also appears in early UP stories.) Joyce said he had no idea where the item came from. It didn't come from him.

I still remain totally mystified how the item got there, even though I also consider it highly significant, both for the mention of the strange blue light near the ranch, and how it was seen only days before, not in the middle of June, the later story as to when Brazel allegedly found the debris.

I also asked Walter Haut if he knew why there were differences in how the press release was reported in three media outlets. For example, I asked him if it were possible that each outlet got a slightly different version, since it is possible that Haut didn't even write the release, but picked it up pre-written at Blanchard's office. Haut said he didn't know, but the routine was to give the same information to all outlets.

So in my very limited way, I did try to run down why the differences existed.

Some I think were just transcription errors. E.g., the standard AP version reported that Major Marcel "loaned" the object to higher headquarters, vs. the object was "flown" to higher headquarters in the UP version, which makes much more sense. Only the L.A. Herald-Express changed the nonsensical AP "loaned" to "flown". (Although I have seen even this obvious press mistake of "Marcel loaned" used to attack Marcel as some sort of egomaniac trying to garnish publicity for himself.)

The likely reason for the difference here is that the AP press release version was phoned into the AP office in Albuquerque by AP stringer George Walsh in Roswell. "Loaned" is a simple transcription error over the phone lines.

Other differences are much harder to explain, such as why UP did not use Marcel's name like AP and the RDR, referring only to a major investigating and picking up the disc. Or why Sheriff Wilcox's name is misspelled as "Wilson" in the early UP telexes and news stories. This is hard to understand, because Joyce said he personally took the press release down to the Western Union station to be put out over the UP wire. Perhaps this was another transcription error at the other end of the line.

These telex modem transmissions over noisy phone lines were not flawless and often produced some garbage at the other end. This is one reason why there was a bell the receiver could ring to signal the sender to manually switch the telex into receive mode, i.e., to let them know that the transmitted message was garbled and please resend. Yes, this also figures into the Lydia Sleppy story, the facts of which some debunkers like Pflock and Korff have similarly garbled to try to discredit the story. Sleppy indicated the bell rang, so she manually switched into receive mode, where she then got the message to cease further transmission.

Assuming butter wouldn't melt in the writer's mouth, I guess this means that since the press release had "gained possession of" rather than "captured", the USAF have no idea what could have impelled anyone to write the story with that word in it.

I'd like to "get at" the USAF's official opinion on the press release, and also the report on the investigation General Ramey referred to.

Part 2 on Korff:There is some stuff that Korff claimed was original research in his Roswell book. E.g., he said he was some sort of high-falutin' computer whiz working at Lawrence Livermore Radiation Lab (where they design nukes). There he supposedly had “top secret”/"Q" access to files of Dr. Donald Menzel, and therefore was able to verify that he had no possible connection to any group like MJ-12.

Given Korff's track-record of lying about his background and just about everything else, a few years ago I tried to check if there might be any truth to his story. So I called the Lawrence Livermore personnel office and had them do a computer search to see if he was ever employed there. According to them, there was no record that he ever worked there, never mind what his alleged job might have been.

I can't absolutely say the story of his LLL employment is false, because I was told of one possible loophole by which someone might work at LLL and not show up in the normal LLL personnel records. But I'm not going to say what that loophole is publicly. Let's see if Korff can figure it out if he reads this.

I have also received a few emails over the years from Korff-haters claiming to have had personal dealings with him and dishing out the dirt. I have never tried checking these stories out (I do have other things to do other than wasting my time on Kal Korff). So consider them just that—rumor and dirt at this point, perhaps from people with a hidden agenda.

One such UNVERIFIED story I got about 10 years ago from a very angry-sounding anonymous source was that he loaned Korff several thousand dollars. (This was supposed to be from when Korff lived in the San Francisco Bay Area down in Silicon Valley.) When he pressed Korff to repay, Korff said he was going to the bank to get the money. But when he returned, he claimed he had gotten the money but then was robbed at gunpoint by a Vietnamese gang, therefore couldn’t repay him any longer since he had no more money. Furthermore, the source said Korff then filed a police report about being robbed, which would be a felony if Korff had made up the story. The source said he didn’t believe Korff and felt he did in fact file a false police report. Within a few days, Korff fled California and set up shop in Washington state, perhaps to escape prosecution if the police had decided to investigate further and discovered the story was false. The man added he was never repaid, or so he said.

Even though I never checked the story to see if it might be true, it did have that authentic Korffesque conman ring to it (including how he was threatened with death, a theme in other of his stories, such as his brave fight against international terrorists). He owed money, so he made up another grandiose lie about himself to try to wriggle out of it.

Again this story came from an anonymous source, was not checked out, and might not be true, so I have hesitated to retell it. But I am putting it out now, considering the dozens of documented examples of other Korffian tall tales that have come out in the last few years, mostly from Korff’s own mouth. I think these add considerable credibility to the Vietnamese gang robbery story that I got.

David: "Joyce said he had no idea where the item came from. It didn't come from him."

That's interesting. Joyce's statements over time are not the most straightforward, so added complexity is the norm. He seems the most likely source, but if not, then who? The UP kept the story through to the post-mortem I think, with nothing added or subtracted.

The misspellings fall into several categories such as phonetic spellings: Haught, Brizell. reading errors: Poster for Foster etc.

Wilson for Wilcox might best be called a typing error: 'c', 'x' and 'n' are bottom left on our keyboards with the 's' right above. Three on the left and one on the right, but I don't know what keyboard layout the error was made on.

What is curious is that all the misspellings are corrected exept Warren Haught was never corrected to Walter Haut. No other source mentions Haut. The UP picked 'Haught' from the AP, I think. In a way, then, 'Walter Haut' was not smeared by the AP.

News not required, though, because the air force had a consensus definition for a 'flying disc' -- Twining "memo" 2 sub e -- published in the following September.

That may be a reason why the air force was not happy with "saucer" and stuck with "disk". Kind of a bureaucratic mindset to it, it seems. They had a definition and it was about disks and that's the word to use, until they invented 'U.F.O.'

I thnk I can answer David Rudiak's hint as to why Korff's name does not appear on the list of employees of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. It is the same reason Robert Lazar did not appear in the Los Alamos employee list.

Korff was a contract worker. He admits this himself in his book, p.199, where he says "In fact I have worked for various federal agencies as either a consultant or a contractor in the fields of computer systems analysis and design,...." He says he oficially terminated this work in Jan. 1991.

Whether he did indeed check into Menzel's "extensive security files" at the time is impossible to verify.

So we do not have to wait for Korff to reply (as if he ever will!)

As to the McBoyle affair, so DR has passed the buck to Kevin. OK Kevin, what about it? In your 2nd book, with Schmitt, on p.141 you state that McBoyle confirmed the description of the object to someone in an interview just before his death in 1992. But the notes list your last interview with McBoyle as Dec. 1990. Was this the interview "just prior to his death", or was there a later one? If so, who conducted that interview? Was it you or not?

It is the first time I have read that McBoyle EVER admitted anything to anybody, let alone that he actually saw the object.

I, too, am quite interested in what Johnny McBoyle may have said directly to any of the researchers here, or elsewhere, late in his life, if that occurred.

I've read online that after his initial urgent attempt to get the story on the wire via Sleppy, and after Sleppy got the warning not to publish the McBoyle story about a "big crumpled dishpan" that McBoyle then later switched gears and basically said there was no story, and that he thought there was nothing to it when asked or questioned about it. True or not?

I've also read that McBoyle subsequently wouldn't discuss the original story or his alleged visit to the crash site where he's supposed to have seen the crashed disk, and other versions where much later in life, at some point, he did admit to having seen what he considered a crashed "flying saucer" and possibly bodies.

What's the real, as far as can be determined, story here? Why did McBoyle change his mind about the story initially, if he did? Did someone get to him? If so, who, if known?

Did he or didn't he talk about seeing the crash site and vehicle, (and possible bodies) later in life or not? If so, when did he belatedly reveal this information? To whom? Was he interviewed on tape, and is there a record of his making these claims? If not, and he didn't make these claims later in life, what do the researchers involved in this discussion think might have been the reason for his initial enthusiasm to get his story out on the wires? Was this just Sleppy's interpretation or impression? Was he scared off by the warning to Sleppy? Is there a good online data source for exploring and/or answering these questions online? I'm looking for the most accurate, confirmed version of this story available, due to the divergent versions of it. Links, please!

I think these issues should be clarified, if known, to inform those reading this debate who may not know as much or what may have already been established about the time-line and details of this story as other researchers.

David "I also asked Walter Haut if he knew why there were differences in how the press release was reported in three media outlets."

I emailed an investigator, one I understood to have known Haut well, about it. He replied that on several occasions Haut said the RDR version was the press release. The investigator said he (that is, the investigator, not Haut) had no information about the differences in the wire versions.

Until that correspondence a few months ago, since usenet days 13 years ago, I had supposed that the parts of the press release that were not in the RDR version were the parts most likely to have been written by someone like Haut rather than a career officer like Blanchard.

It was both disorienting and interesting to view it in 'reverse angle'. Why the RDR might not publish certain portions of it could be made to yield something sensible, but I find nothing sensible about the AP adding a local (Lincoln county) backstory to the press release, plus a 'literary' introductory preface.

Regarding the "strange blue light", DXR54 contains an editorial comment within the press release story: "...the rancher, whose name has not yet been obtained..." is not in sync with "Residents near the ranch on which the disc was found reported..." This implies the location of the ranch and therefore the name of the rancher were known to whoever wrote it.

It seems unlikely anyone down the line would feel a need to spice up the story as if it needed something to make it interesting.

The Wilmot saucer was reported to have glowed, but no color was mentioned. I don't know if any of the other sightings in the region at the time were said to glow, blue or not.

It must have been something to see to get people out of bed and outdoors at 3am, though...especially if it was during a thunderstorm.

There is quite a lot about the Sleppy teletype story in the Moore-Shandera paper ROSWELL REVISITED - THE ANATOMY OF A COVER-UP, pub 1990.

Moore changes the date from July 7 to July 8 but still insists the time was 4PM.

Sleppy says McBoyle phoned her saying he had been at a restaurant (!) when Brazel came in saying he had stored the 'thing' in a cattle shelter. McBoyle had been out to the ranch and seen it, and returned. Therefore McBoyle had spent 5 to 6 hours travelling that day, and completed his journey before 4PM. How he got there we don't know. Neither do we know how he managed to see the thing loaded on a plane. (He told Lydia this later, and added that armed guards were there). But the 'big crumpled dishpan' quote is there.

And so on, and on. Even by the time of the 1990 article, the FBI was not yet involved. (It is not in Sleppy's recall of the interrupt as per her 1979 & 1982 interviews with Moore & Friedman). But she does say she can't recall the exact words. When interviewed, McBoyle refused to discuss it with Friedman and that was that.

DR tells us on this forum that McBoyle revealed everything before his death. DR then says he got it from the Randle-Schmitt 2nd book. I have already mentioned this.

Steve Sawyer is right to question the whole episode. Who said what to whom, and is Kevin going to enlighten us? And if he does enlighten us, will it really take the story forward? I wonder.

This blog was intended to be "Can we trust Kal Korff?".

I would also ask "can we trust Johnny McBoyle, over a single thing he said, or was alleged to have said?"

Regarding DR's ferocious dispute with Gilles over Mogul, I should add that we have documentation that an array of balloons went up sometime early on the morning of June 4. We do not know the composition of this array, how many balloons there were or whether radar targets were included. Such is all guesswork as there is no detail given, other than a sonobuoy. This flight was not recovered at the time and no further record of it exists, other than one man's distant memory. We do NOT need to know what the serial number was (flight 4, 3A, 3B or whatever).

We have two newspaper reports, the RDR and the FW Telegram that BOTH give very similar descriptions of the debris. These accounts strongly suggest balloon and radar target debris, to me anyway.

Forgetting all about what was said by anyone post-1978, I ask for straight answers:

1. Does DR really believe that both press accounts were 'fixed' by the military as a cover-up, or does he think the accounts describe what was actually found at the ranch? Were J.Bond Johnson (at Ft Worth) and Jason Kellahin (at Roswell) BOTH told what stories to write by the USAF?

2. What do the two press stories describe, a visiting spaceship from afar or debris from a balloon cluster plus radar reflector(s)?

3. If these accounts do describe balloon debris, how does DR suppose the debris got there, i.e. where was it launched from, or did someone drive out to the desert and place it there?

I have without ad hominem attack replied in the previous devoted topic concerning end May and start of June 1947 flights in Alamogordo I expedition (reply #157).

May the 29th and June the 4th, at least 2 NYU apparatus FLEW despite your "rethoric" about annulations or cancellations.

Both were followed by plan (So they went up in my mind!), and they taked place in space and time of both Almogordo I expedition and the Roswell discovery. There is no one mention they were recovered, despite flight #5 did and is mentionned as such. That's writted in an historiographical source called the Crary's diary.

We have an historical drawing of the precedent cluster assembly used in East Coast concerning the balloons apparatus assembly and that cluster#2 shows radar-targets, apparatus used just before Alamogordo I expedition then.

As we have an historical ML307 blue-print indicating to reinforce the structure with 3M scotch tape in a marge and nota 22 ;

As historical data showing Victor Hoeflich (july the 12th, newspaper) was in charge of the radar targets assembly;

As historic patents he was advisor or director of American Merri Lei Corporation (a toys factory);

cda "We have two newspaper reports, the RDR and the FW Telegram that BOTH give very similar descriptions of the debris. These accounts strongly suggest balloon and radar target debris, to me anyway."

Speaking here of the Brazel "interview" and not the Fort Worth story.

Only one of the accounts "strongly suggest balloon", the RDR version. The Kellahin AP byline version describes a kite only. No balloon.

Both versions are defenses of Brazel on the issue of the flying disc. Both Kellahin and the RDR versions reference the press release and put the origin of the "flying disc" language on the army, and not Brazel.

In this purported interview, Brazel is quoted five times, four of them in Kellahin.

Three of the five quotations refer to either Brazel's surprise or embarrassment. The important one in the Kellahin story is the Brazel quotation:

"At first I thought it was a kite, but we couldn't put it together like any kite I ever saw," he said. "It wasn't a kite."

Which proves it is a Roswell story because it is self-contradictory.

The Daily Record story has both "rubber" and "balloon" (both absent from Kellahin's version).

And, of course, we all know the self-contradiction, which is the one quotation in the RDR story: "I am sure that what I found was not any weather observation balloon".

When the interviewee is quoted in both stories, he does not substantiate that what he found was either a balloon or its kite. Make of it what you will.

The defense of Brazel and the contradictions in the direct quotatons (and the curiosity of the RDR headline "harrassed rancher" being "sorry") indicate to me that some natives (Kellahin was a Roswellian) in the news media were no longer in a mood to cooperate with army, if they ever were.

Nobody knows what that June 4 flight consisted of, since there are no details given. People can speculate forever but in the end we simply do not know the answer.

But somebody has got to explain rationally what the two primary newspapers on July 9 are talking about. To my mind, both describe something very much like balloon & radar reflector debris. But "no" say the ETHers; they want a 'spaceship', and nothing else. Therefore these press descriptions MUST have been forced upon the newspapers by the wicked US military, together with intimidating witnesses (some with death threats), incarcerating Brazel for 8 days, setting up a 'slush fund' at the RAAF base, telling lies to the FBI in Dallas, and goodness knows what else. The Bond Johnson photos show an ersatz (substitute) balloon, Ramey takes his secret to the grave, like Blanchard & several others, and away we go.

To be serious: What Roswell pro-ET researchers need more than anything else is a good dose of plain common sense. Agreed?

Cda, regarding what was reported in the Brazel interview and what Johnson photographed in Ramey's office, do you think they are the same materials? The Brazel interview describes materials that have been shredded like confetti. Do you see that in the photos?

Can you cite any neoprene balloon+kite recovery of the many thousands that were launched that describe the condition of the of the recovered materials like those found in the Brazel interview?

We have drifted far from the original post, which was Kal Korff, pretend colonel, pretend CEO, pretend researcher, calling Jesse Marcel, Sr. a liar. How could someone who had invented so much of his resume dare call someone who had served with distinction during World War II a liar? In Korff’s place, I think I would have formatted my arguments around a different point.

And now, this isn’t about whether Jesse Marcel, Sr. lied about his education... it is about Korff and his distortions.

That said, Don -

I will point out that The Roswell Encyclopedia was originally 200,000 words and the publisher required that I eliminate 80,000 or about the size of many novels. Much that I knew didn’t make it into that book. The choices I made were because of what I believed to be the best or the worst information. What someone would need to know and want to know about the case.

Walter Haut, for example, pointed out one change that was made to the press release. He said that he was getting calls from reporters who wanted to know how Marcel had known how to fly the object... he then changed the wording to loaned it to higher headquarters so they would know that he hadn’t piloted it.

Of course, a better choice of words would have been escorted it to higher headquarters, but I wasn’t there to advise him.

Jason Kellahin, as best I know, was assigned to the AP office in Albuquerque in 1947, not in Roswell (though Roswell was in his territory).

Brazel, according to various witnesses, was escorted to the RDR office by five or six military men. Floyd Proctor, among others, said this.

George Walsh told me on December 5, 1990, that Haut had called him, said that he had gotten a call from the War Department and they had told him, Haut, in two words... Shut Up (Which, BTW, Walter would always deny) .

CDA -

I interviewed Johnny McBoyle on December 17, 1990, and I did not record the call. I didn’t want to ask his permission and have him tell me no, or worse, hang up on me.

I asked him about the idea that what had fallen at Roswell was a Japanese Balloon Bomb as John Keel was suggesting.

He told me that he had never heard that. Remembered nothing like that about the crash.

I mentioned Lydia Sleppy to him, whom he remembered. I mentioned her story of being interrupted by an incoming transmission and he said that happened periodically which is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the story but a way of answering the question without lying about it. (I will note here that I hadn’t looked at these notes in a long time.)

So I asked if what he had seen was a balloon and he said, “No,” and then realized what he had said. That was pretty much the end of the conversation.

It is my understanding, because I would have gotten the phone number from Don Schmitt, that Don had talked to him as well. The crushed dishpan description came from the information that Don developed.

Again, I had to waste this good stuff so deep into the comments section of a post that has nothing really to do with this.

Kevin:"He said that he was getting calls from reporters who wanted to know how Marcel had known how to fly the object...he then changed the wording to loaned it to higher headquarters so they would know that he hadn’t piloted it."

Was there ever an early AP story with "flown" rather than "loaned"? Both the earliest UP telex we have (2:41) and the Daily Record have "flown", but avoid the piloting the disc implication.

Curious story.

"Jason Kellahin, as best I know, was assigned to the AP office in Albuquerque in 1947, not in Roswell (though Roswell was in his territory)."

I'm not sure why this is directed to me unless it was my referring to Kellahin as a Roswell native, as per (4) in his affidavit.

"Brazel, according to various witnesses, was escorted to the RDR office by five or six military men. Floyd Proctor, among others, said this."

From Paul McEvoy (I think) a Proctor and a Strickland, and according to Carey & Schmitt, a Porter, a Sparks, and a Jenkins. Plus Brazel, of course.

Always thought that was a lot of ranchers to be so far from their ranches in early evening on a weekday. There must have been a reason.

"Again, I had to waste this good stuff so deep into the comments section of a post that has nothing really to do with this."

It looks like not many readers care to comment on Korff. From what has been described in this thread, he sounds like a classic usenet kook. There were dozens of them. Those who wrangled with him may enjoy dissecting his fantasies. I just don't care. How skeptics managed to accept his ideas is beyond me. Lot's of things like that are beyond me, I'll admit.

Part 1:Don (Sourcerer) wrote: Both versions are defenses of Brazel on the issue of the flying disc. Both Kellahin and the RDR versions reference the press release and put the origin of the "flying disc" language on the army, and not Brazel.

Don, that isn't quite correct, since the RDR story did have Brazel saying that he thought that maybe he had found a flying disk:

"Monday he came to town to sell some wool and while here he went to see sheriff George Wilcox and 'whispered kinda confidential like' that he might have found a flying disk."

This is also reported in a Roswell Morning Dispatch story on July 9. Brazel came to the Sheriff's office thinking he had found a flying disk.

Which conflicts sharply from what Sheriff Wilcox was quoted as saying by UP in the surviving Frank Joyce telexes, namely that Brazel came in saying that he thought he had found a "weather meter":

"Sheriff Wilcox says that Brizell said he didn't know what it was, but that at first it appeared to be a weather meter."

Which, of course, conflicts with Brazel's end-story denial in the RDR that it WASN'T any sort of weather device, since he had previously found two weather balloons on his property.

Hmmmm... Sheriff Wilcox changing the story to a weather device might very well be explained by a regional AP story, such as appeared in the Albuquerque Journal July 9, where it said Wilcox refused to answer more questions about what the object looked like, explaining that he was "working with those fellows at the base."

Wilcox was similarly all over the place, depending on who he talked to, on the dates of discovery (AP: 2 or 3 days before; UP: 3 weeks before) and when Brazel came to town (AP: Monday; UP: "Day before yesterday" or Sunday)

The base press release, probably based on information from Marcel after being with Brazel for a day, similarly conflicted on discovery date ("sometime last week") with Brazel's and the later official story of 3 weeks before or mid-June, with Marcel going along with the change of story.

And Marcel similarly sharply conflicted with Brazel as to when he picked up the debris. Marcel in Fort Worth said Brazel picked it up immediately when he first found it mid-June and rolled it under some brush. But Brazel's story in the RDR was that he didn't think much about it, was too busy, and didn't pick it up for another 3 weeks when his family was visiting.

This also conflicts with Marcel reporting that Brazel rushed out and picked up his rolled up bundles himself “bright and early” on July 6 after first hearing about the flying saucers in Corona on July 5.

Brazel’s delayed July 4 recovery further conflicts with the condition of Ramey's singular balloon in the surviving photos, since real neoprene weather balloons would be reduced to a brittle, black paper ash material after only 2 to 3 weeks exposure in N.M. sun. But Brazel was claiming he found "rubber strips" that he rolled into a bundle. There would have been no such pliable rubber strips to roll into anything after a month, and besides, the photos do not show a bunch of strips, but a mostly intact, slightly used weather balloon.

Brazel also claimed that the debris in total weighed maybe 5 pounds, not even 10% of a real Mogul, and also in conflict with Ramey’s singular weather balloon and radar target, confirmed by the photos showing one radar target and probably only one weather balloon (as by my computer reconstruction and measurements). This would have been less than 2 pounds of debris.

Part 2:Brazel also claimed that the debris in total weighed maybe 5 pounds, not even 10% of a real Mogul, and also in conflict with Ramey’s singular weather balloon and radar target, confirmed by the photos showing one radar target and probably only one weather balloon (as by my computer reconstruction and measurements). This would have been less than 2 pounds of debris.More conflicts arise in descriptions of the debris field, which Brazel described as 200 yards across (RDR), vs. Marcel's "square mile" (AP), vs. the tiny quantity of a singular weather balloon and radar target in the photos which wouldn't have been scattered very far over anything, vs. Sheridan Cavitt's later "no bigger than my living room".

Brazel in the RDR story also explicitly denied finding any string or wire by which a balloon might have held the object up, and similarly there is no string in the FW photos tied to the radar target, which necessarily should have been there had that radar target ever flown. A real Mogul would have left behind hundreds of yards of string and twine, but nobody ever described finding anything like that, then or now.

However, in modern DebunkerMythology, all of these conflicting descriptions are considered "consistent" with a Mogul balloon crash.

Beyond us all, though, few enough admitting such, Sir. Apart from that and given all manner of unnamed dilettantes pole vaulting tick excreta contrary to well papered experts, someone like the ineffable "Triple K" really stands out,eh? Consequently, you have to make a funnel of this guy's horn, periodically, just to discourage him, and like others, from blowing confusing, self-congratulating, and discursive notage, eh?

At least quote the original source on this. Don Schmitt and I conducted that interview with Bill Brazel, Jr. in Carrizozo, New Mexico in February 1989. Of course, reading his book, you'd never know that it was from my tapes of that conversation that Brazel said that. Friedman used it was no proper attribution.

I will also note here that this quote does not make your argument because he was referring to something that he described as "monofilament fishing line" and said that you could shine a light in one end and it would come out the other...

So, were the Mogul engineers using fiber optics to string their balloons together in 1947?

Kevin wrote:We have drifted far from the original post, which was Kal Korff, pretend colonel, pretend CEO, pretend researcher, calling Jesse Marcel, Sr. a liar. How could someone who had invented so much of his resume dare call someone who had served with distinction during World War II a liar? In Korff’s place, I think I would have formatted my arguments around a different point.

And now, this isn’t about whether Jesse Marcel, Sr. lied about his education... it is about Korff and his distortions.

Well, Kevin, I did do my little bit to try to bring it back to the subject of Krazy Kal and his lies about Marcel's record.

Of course, Korff was hardly alone in accusing Marcel of being a liar. It all started with the equally nasty and unbalanced Robert Todd, who somehow got a hold of Marcel's service file when nobody else could, including Jesse Marcel Jr., who like everybody else was told the file had been destroyed in the St. Louis records repository back in 1973.

Todd then took the file and grossly distorted what was in it, sometimes flagrantly lying, and wrote a vicious polemic attacking Marcel that only stopped short of accusing Marcel of spying for the Russians and child pornography.

At that point, nobody else had the file, so there was no way to rebut anything Todd wrote. But other debunkers quickly seized upon Todd's article and regurgitated it as if it were holy writ. Korff reprinted it verbatim. Peter Brookesmith, called Marcel a "fantasist". These sort of attacks on Marcel continue to this day, and they all stem from Todd, who was clearly mentally ill in the latter part of his life.

The intention was obvious. Marcel was a key witness, so if his credibility could be destroyed through character assassination, then they hoped the whole Roswell case would be called into question.

At some point, Kevin got a hold of the file Todd had, I found out about it, and Kevin sent me a copy. When I carefully went through it, I realized two things very quickly. One was that Todd had lied about what was there (including lies of omission, i.e. anything that would support what Marcel said), and the second was that there were many gaps in the file, e.g., exactly what Marcel was doing when first assigned to Washington D.C. in 1942 or during his 2-1/2 years in the South Pacific theater of war, for which there was maybe a total of 15 pages. E.g., Marcel was promoted to Captain there, but there was no accompanying paperwork, nor was there any supporting paperwork for the Bronze Star he received, except for the citation itself. There was no detail about the 10 combat campaigns he was involved in.

So the original may indeed have been destroyed in the fire, but what we have is a partially reconstructed file, still totaling over 200 pages. But if something wasn't specifically mentioned in the file, that too was cited as "evidence" that Marcel must have lied about it.

E.g., the gap in his record from when he was first assigned to intelligence school in Washington (which Todd deliberately neglected to mention, even though it is in 2 documents he cites elsewhere) to when he showed up at the intelligence school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania instead 2 months later, is used as "evidence" that he must have lied about briefly working for AAF chief Hap Arnold as an aide. In reality, Marcel said he was transferred to Pennsylvania on Arnold's recommendation because Arnold thought he could get the necessary training in Air Intelligence there. There is nothing in the actual record Todd had that conflicted with Marcel's account (in fact, it would actually support it a little bit, since he WAS assigned to Washington initially), which is why Todd deliberately distorted what was there to accuse Marcel of "lying" about it.

"Todd then took the file and grossly distorted what was in it, sometimes flagrantly lying, and wrote a vicious polemic attacking Marcel that only stopped short of accusing Marcel of spying for the Russians and child pornography."

Apart from outright lying, omitting, and distorting, a scrofulous Todd could be taken down on many of his charges using the same arguments he used to besmirch the memory and legacy of an unquestionably Honorable American hero, as I pointed out in this article for UFO Magazine, reprinted here: http://ufoproletariat.blogspot.com/2010/02/gray-is-word.html

"Don, that isn't quite correct, since the RDR story did have Brazel saying that he thought that maybe he had found a flying disk:"

David, note where the end-quotation mark is:

..."whispered kinda confidential like" that he might have found a flying disk.

"This is also reported in a Roswell Morning Dispatch story on July 9. Brazel came to the Sheriff's office thinking he had found a flying disk."

I'm less familiar with the RMD material. I thought it had this:

"...reported finding an object which fit the descriptions of the flying discs."

and

"According to Mr. Brazel, the object ['object', not 'disc'] had the shape of a box kite. It was broken in two. The size of the alleged disc was, contrary to previous descriptions, rectangular, and measured approximately three feet by four feet."

This mention, the "alleged disc" is a good example of an implied attribution. The beginning sentence is a direct attribution "According to Mr Brazel" which makes sense for the size and condition following, but I doubt very much whether Brazel would say anything about an "alleged disk" or anything about his description being "contrary to previous descriptions".

Because the direct one is followed by more text that goes off on things Brazel would not know, it is an implied attribution that doesn't pass the test.

I haven't found a quotation of Brazel that includes any reference to a disc or saucer, flying or not.

Doesn't mean he didn't use the term, but it does indicate, if he did, that at least the editor of the RDR was not going to have the paper quote him directly, for whatever reason.

The problem with attributions is that they can run over onto other things (implied attributions) that may not have been referred to and we are left to determine where the direct attribution ends.

There seems to be an effort by at least the RDR to not put 'disk' or 'saucer' in any civilians' mouth.

When you go through all the lies that Todd wrote about Marcel, in the end the only charges that might possibly have had any merit are that Marcel may or may not have exaggerated about shooting down 5 Japanese zeros in combat and whether he received a bachelor's degree in physics, and even these are ambiguous as to whether Marcel misrepresented anything.

E.g., Marcel in two interviews, (first Bob Pratt, later Linda Corley) said he received 5 air medals for shooting down 5 planes in combat as a gunner. The surviving record shows two air medals, but as Kevin has often pointed out, he received 41 air medals for his helicopter missions in Viet Nam, but only two ended up in his record, and Alfred Lehmberg has similarly written the same thing happened to him as a helicopter pilot in Nam.

The surviving two air medals, without specifying exactly why they were awarded other than boilerplate "meritorious achievement" and "courage and devotion to duty", did indicate they were during combat missions against the Japanese where they were expected to come under enemy fire. Did Todd mention that fact? No, of course not, because it lent some support to Marcel's statement. Instead Todd confabulated that they were awarded only for riding along as a passenger, more debunker psychic research at work. Regulations, however, make it clear that wouldn't be the case, since the citations were for periods under 6 months, whereas air medals awarded for other than valor or merit require more than 6 months flight time.

To deal with the education claims would require another lengthy post, and things are again not as clear cut as the debunkers claim.

But let us leave it at this. Marcel was indeed the head intelligence at Roswell, was indeed part of the initial investigation, and his story has a lot of corroboration, including from two Air Force generals who went on the record, Dubose and Exon. In addition, his record has even better reviews of his work after Roswell (despite propaganda to the contrary from Todd and Korff), including Ramey calling him "outstanding" a year later, command officer material, and commenting he had nobody to replace him with as he was being transferred for higher intelligence work. But you won't hear Todd or Korff or any other debunker mentioning any of this.

The "5 Air Medals" kookery reminds me of a concurrent thread on usenet that David may recall. A member of the usenet Roswell kookery section who went by the handle of 'twitch' started a thread "Should Randle be Trusted?".

Why? Because, Kevin, they said you made a false statement, according to 18 USC 1001, when you signed your discharge papers (I recall) because it listed fewer medals than you were actually awarded.

~~~The "5 Air Medals" kookery reminds me of a concurrent thread on usenet that David may recall. A member of the usenet Roswell kookery section who went by the handle of 'twitch' started a thread "Should Randle be Trusted?".~~~~

Jesus. Twitch still haunts Usenet?How deliciously pathetic! I'm reminded of spirits in denial of their own demise and unwilling to pass over.

I don't know. This was back in 1997. I see some names from then around blog forums occasionally, but I don't know what his name was besides the 'twitch' handle.

He got me started on the 1947-only approach. Whatever tolerance he had for me vanished when I pointed out that the best support in 1947 stories for his position was Marcel. He didn't take too kindly to that because he was a confirmed Marcel hater. I've saved out some posts from that time. There's plenty evidence there showing the kookery of Marcel haters.

I'll be damned, that's about the time, and earlier, I was knockin' heads with him... maybe he's passed on. I cold-turkeyed Usenet, myself, when the rest of the Internet started to get substantive. Figures, actually. Twitch was quaint at best. But what hubris.

We are faced, yet again, with trustworthiness and reliability when it comes to witnesses and also writers such as Todd and Korff.

Todd did a very good service in exposing that phony October 30, 1947 Schulgen USAF memorandum (a reworded & ET-biased version of the original). He was certainly not mentally ill at the time. He certainly exposed some of Friedman's Roswell follies. Yet he told lies about Marcel, writing things (so David Rudiak tells us) "that only stopped short of accusing Marcel of spying for the Russians and child pornography".

Now we have Korff exposed as a brazen liar and fraud. Yet even he wrote one perfectly good book on Roswell, which antagonised the ETHers, but which is still mainly sane and sensible (sorry Kevin). He then promised loads of other expose type books, which never materialised. He talked about some mythical 'supermodel (!)' in the Czech Republic, who knew all about Randle and Schmitt's alleged follies, etc, etc.

Which goes to ahow that you can (probably) trust some of the people some of the time, a few (possibly) of the people all of the time. But never can you trust everyone all of the time, and there are certainly many who you can trust none of the time.

Phew! But then is what Roswell, and most of ufology, is all about, isn't it?

Now we have Korff exposed as a brazen liar and fraud. Yet even he wrote one perfectly good book on Roswell, which antagonised the ETHers, but which is still mainly sane and sensible (sorry Kevin). He then promised loads of other expose type books, which never materialised. He talked about some mythical 'supermodel (!)' in the Czech Republic, who knew all about Randle and Schmitt's alleged follies, etc, etc

Of all the Roswell books, pro or con, Korff's is the worst, a hack job of copycatting the work of others and then putting his negative spin on it. One of the biggest wastes of money in my life, but I felt I had to buy it (ugh!) to counter his claims.

Korff is nothing but a carnival barker trying to lure in the suckers. He didn't suddenly become a big liar after he wrote his Roswell book. He has always been a liar.

Just one example among a multitude was his "Pamela 7" hoax on UFO Updates back in 1997, that I recently linked to. This was just before his Roswell book came out, which Korff was touting as the best thing since sex or chocolate. Suddenly "Pamela 7" also started posting, claiming to have read the book and praising the book as the very best Roswell book ever, posts written in the same LOTS OF LARGE SHOUTING CAPS style that Korff also likes to use and touting the same material Korff had been touting.

Another problem was that the book wasn't even available yet, so how did "Pamela 7" read it?

Korff was asked if he was posting under the pseudonym "Pamela 7" to promote his book. He denied it.

Then Errol Bruce Knapp noted that "Pamela 7's" mailbox filled up simultaneously with Korff's when he emailed Updates posts to the addresses. What a coincidence!

It was quite obvious that Korff was one and the same with "Pamela 7", a classic Internet "sockpuppet". Then he lied about it. Case closed!

The very best "anti-Roswell" book was written by Pflock. Pflock at least did his own research and his book is chock full of useful information, even for "pro" researchers. He can also cleverly craft an argument, even if it often is disingenuous and questionable.

E.g., regarding the Oliver "Pappy" Henderson story told to family and friends of seeing the aliens and flying flying saucer wreckage to Wright Field, Pflock doesn't come out and call Henderson a liar or senile old man or the usual tools of a debunker to dismiss a seemingly credible witness. No Pflock instead asserts that Henderson was a "practical joker", and thus his whole story told to many people, including his wife and daughter, was a "practical joke".

How did Pflock determine this? Why using his amazing debunker psychic powers again, perhaps having a seance with the dead where Henderson informs him he was just playing around.

This is the whole problem with most debunker dismissals of witnesses. They aren't based on anything of substance. It is nothing but the will to disbelieve and the desire to debunk the Roswell case. So any crappy "explanation" of why a witness is to be disbelieved will do. We see it here on Kevin's blog all the time. Right cda and Gilles?

Part 1:Gilles predictably writes:I have without ad hominem attack replied in the previous devoted topic concerning end May and start of June 1947 flights in Alamogordo I expedition (reply #157). May the 29th and June the 4th, at least 2 NYU apparatus FLEW despite your "rethoric" about annulations or cancellations.

Well, here we go again, with Gilles refusing to concede the patently obvious: there is zero documentation that a Mogul Flight #4 ever existed.

My so-called “rhetoric” is based on a diary saying they “canceled” the flight on June 4 because of cloud cover, as they were legally mandated to do by the CAA because of the potential threat to aviation. My “rhetoric” is also based on the simple fact that other known canceled Mogul flights, such as #2, #3, and #9, are also not included in follow-up Mogul reports and flight summaries. #2 and #9 are known not to have ever left the ground.

If there were “flights” on May 29th and June 4th, then these would have been small “service flights”, which were NOT large Mogul flights, the fully-configured flights testing balloon materials, balloon configurations and constant-altitude control equipment, to see if they could achieved controlled constant-altitude flight. To that end, they had to carefully track the balloons using multiple tracking systems to see if they performed properly, and also to make sure they didn’t soar into flight lanes (CAA demand). If such a constant-altitude flight LEFT THE GROUND, it was necessarily tracked, and even with partial tracking data or failure of the flight, it was ALWAYS recorded.

“Service flights” were small flights testing specific pieces of equipment, but were NOT numbered Mogul constant-altitude flights, ALL of the latter being recorded by Mogul if they ever flew. But Gilles STILL can’t grasp this very simple FACT and continues to prattle on.

In fact, Gilles then went further and through incredibly convoluted and false “reasoning” concluded that the reason “Flight #4” was not recorded is because they had no altitude data for it, supposedly because of limited tracking range (with also a lie thrown in that altitude could not be deduced from theodolite tracking).

To begin with, it is quite remarkable Gilles could know this for a fact, given the total absence of flight records for #4, so obviously the usual infallible debunker psychic powers were involved. But the reasons he gave why they couldn’t properly track the balloons were totally fabricated and bogus and contradicted by the Mogul records themselves. E.g., a real flight, #17, followed the same ground track as Charles Moore ascribed to #4, which he said was unique for #4, and they tracked it 100% of the time with two tracking systems (theodolite and radiosonde) BEYOND where Moore said they lost track of his imaginary #4. Even Moore claimed they were optically tracking #4 by air and ground well beyond your arbitrary 40 mile limit.

And finally, if Gilles’ argument had any merit, then they would have had to toss out the data from a vast majority of Mogul flights since few had 100% complete tracking data and most flew well beyond the range of their tracking systems.

Part 2:Both were followed by plan (So they went up in my mind!), and they taked place in space and time of both Almogordo I expedition and the Roswell discovery. There is no one mention they were recovered, despite flight #5 did and is mentionned as such. That's writted in an historiographical source called the Crary's diary.

Earth to Gilles. MOST Mogul flights were never recovered. So what? And isn’t the argument of the debunkers that Flight #4 WAS recovered because Brazel found it and turned it over to the Army? Oddly, this too isn’t recorded anywhere in Mogul reports and flight summaries.

The reason is very simple. Mogul flight #4 is not recorded because it never left the ground; it was “canceled “on account of excessive cloud coverage. Never flew, no debris to recover, no recovery to record. Any other “flights” mentioned in Crary’s diary were the small “service flights”, but these were not true Mogul numbered constant-altitude flights. Gilles still refuses to acknowledge the difference.

We have an historical drawing of the precedent cluster assembly used in East Coast concerning the balloons apparatus assembly and that cluster#2 shows radar-targets, apparatus used just before Alamogordo I expedition then.

But Flight #2 was ALSO canceled, therefore it too isn’t recorded in flight summaries. In fact, Mogul reports say it never went up because they had problems on launch. No launch, no flight, no recording of a nonexistent flight in Mogul records. See, it is really very simple Gilles.

As for the INTENDED (but nonexistent) Flight #2 having radar targets, this is hardly some “proof” that an intended #4 also had them. The only one of the early N.M. Moguls shown as being tracked by radar was #8 from July 3. But with Gilles DebunkerLogic, we can also conclude that the preceding and following launches in June and July MUST also have carried radar targets, even though they didn’t, as proven by the absence of such targets in surviving schematics and the fact that flight summaries show they weren’t tracked by radar.

As we have an historical ML307 blue-print indicating to reinforce the structure with 3M scotch tape in a marge and nota 22 ; As historical data showing Victor Hoeflich (july the 12th, newspaper) was in charge of the radar targets assembly; As historic patents he was advisor or director of American Merri Lei Corporation (a toys factory); As historical publicities of 3M candy scotch tapes (with symbols then).

Gilles back to his tiresome and pointless ritualistic recitation about radar targets being assembled with scotch tape, Victor Hoeflich and his Merri Lei toy company making radar targets, and “candy tape” existing back then Yes, Gilles, radar targets existed, and like any balsa wood kite, they used Scotch tape in the making (as I did when I was a kid). So what?

This is all utterly IRRELEVANT to the REAL question: where is the proof that there ever was a Flight #4? You call this proof?

As for your “candy tape” with symbols, I have also asked you to point it out in the surviving Fort Worth photos, which can be blown up and examined in great detail. Nobody can find anything like that, not even the 1994 USAF debunkers who went looking for it. But below, you claim there is an “identity relation” between all the descriptions, yet when you get to the hard evidence, the photos, there is no such “identify relation” between the photos and what Mack Brazel described or a Mogul.

Part 3:In fact, You force the reader to think noone NYU apparatus have flew in Alamogordo I expedition before flight#5. All was cancelled or annulated, in short.

For shame! I’m “forcing” the reader to think there were indeed no constant-altitude true Mogul flights before #5, because that is what the historical records show, not only Mogul but official Air Force and NASA histories of flight. Flight #5 was the FIRST N.M. Mogul flight, period.

I am also apparently “forcing” the readers to conclude there was no Flight #2 back East, perhaps based on it also not being in Mogul flight summaries, plus a note in a report that it never left the ground because of launch problems. Will my historical perfidy and reader arm-twisting never end?

If a Mogul flight went up, it was recorded. If it never left the ground, it was not. Very simple, but Gilles argues on because he just has to have his nonexistent Mogul Flight #4, or he doesn’t have a case.

But if you like to contest that FACTS with ferocity, ad hominem attacks cause my english is closed to zero, well enjoy. It will never change something concerning this prosaic facts;)

I could go (and previously have gone) into great length rebutting Gilles’ pompous claims here about “identity relations”, e.g., where is the “flower tape” in the Fort Worth photos, or where is the hundreds of yards of Mogul twine? In reality, as I just detailed in a lengthy post to Don, there are numerous contradictions between Brazel’s claims and others, plus what he allegedly found vs. what is shown in the FW photos, which also contradict what would actually be expected from a Mogul crash. But there isn’t much point in arguing this any more because Gilles’ head is stuck in debunking cement. Gilles has his debunking “will to believe” in a nonexistent Mogul balloon flight, because otherwise he has no case.

Gilles’ use of “post-1978” testimonial evidence is interesting, because as usual he is cherry-picking such testimony (like the USAF did) and throwing out the vast bulk of it that doesn’t agree with his nonexistent Mogul or prosaic balloon materials. If the testimony doesn’t agree, then he claims there is “witness contamination” or bad memory going on and dismisses it entirely. But these never apply to decades-old memories he does use, Gilles’ usual debunker hypocrisy and double standard. Nothing new here.

As for the alleged ad hominems against his English, I only said his English was poorer than usual making some of his arguments almost incomprehensible. The actual insults were directed at his more comprehensible arguments, which amounted to incredible twisting of facts based on psychological denial of the historical record. Along the way I called his arguments fantasies, which they are, with a little lying thrown in for good measure.

The bottom line is I challenged Gilles to document that Flight #4 ever existed. He can’t. Instead we get back the usual irrelevant nonsense about service flights as Mogul flights, Merri-Lei toy company, candy tape, Flight #2 with radar targets (also “cancelled”), etc. Gilles thinks this is some sort of QED proof of the existence of Flight #4, but it is instead a twisted mess of disjointed logic that only a fellow debunker could love.

David Rudiak wrote, regarding Karl Pflock's book and the story about Oliver 'Pappy' Henderson, as follows:

"So any crappy 'explanation' of why a witness is to be disbelieved will do. We see it here on Kevin's blog all the time. Right cda and Gilles?"

Wrong.

For anyone interested:

Please take a look at p.124-5 of Pflock's book, read carefully what he says (as opposed to what DR omits), and then tell us if you accept that Pappy Henderson was indeed a well known practical joker or not. Then tell us whether you really think Pappy ever handled a piece of the Roswell debris or flew the wreckage to Wright Field.

You insult always the others as liars etc... You remarked things about Korff etc, but you are unabble to apply for yourself what you teach to others... Cool, Zen, David;)

You wrote:"with also a LIE thrown in that altitude could not be deduced from theodolite tracking"

You have NYU documentation where it is written black on white that theodolite gived accurated dataes until a certain distance AND must be coupled with HEIGHT dataes when passing 40 miles AND it was concerning in New Mexico:

"The flights made in the early part of this program were tracked optically with theodolites. COUPLED with the HEIGHT data, theodolite readings provided a fairly reliable HORIZONTAL locus of the balloon. HOWEVER, even in the clear air of New Mexico, this method is useful for not more than 100 miles and, UNLESS accurate height data are available, theodolite stations provide useful data FOR NOT MORE THAN 40 MILES." (NYU technical report number 1, page 13).

But you know that they were abble to obtain height dataes whatever distant the flight was (aka more 40 miles...) with Theodolites triangulation only. And I'm a liar. AND NYU team was full of incompetent persons.

For the rest, Moore (a liar too) explained why and how the tracking of 4 june flight was lost after 40 miles, etc.

For the last part of your tirade, we have always discuted the things and beam of evidences conducing to Mogul as a very good alternative of Roswell UFO case

Granted that flight 4 never existed, we still know that there WAS a launch of a cluster of balloons plus unknown other equipment early on June 4. If we could cease talking about the numbers (flight 4, 3A, 4A or whatever) we might get somewhere.

I repeat: Ignoring all the post-1978 evidence, will DR please tell us what the two reports in the RDR, both describing the debris, actually describe. Is it the remains of a visiting ET craft or is it more (far more) likely to be debris from a balloon launch of some kind from a nearby AF base?

As to Gilles' arguments being fantasies, I cannot think of a greater fantasy than the idea of the USAF making the most important scientific discovery ever made, with literally roomfuls of subsequent paperwork, several ET bodies and spacecraft wreckage still top secret and hidden from the scientific world for 63 years.

Astonishing! What crippling and knee-walking, no, doubled up in some "abominable abdominal" brand of caustic irony is _this_?! Talk about "...believer logic." You behold yourself in a mirror, Sir, and then pronounce "such" and "so"! Sincerely, you are quite breathtaking!

We've been over this before. Proof of advanced ETs would've been/was MUCH MORE than the greatest 'scientific" discovery ever made. Far more was potentially at risk than certain ideas, such as life being unique to Earth. This was no mere academic matter. There could've been hysteria, panic; society could've been turned upside down. ULTRA was kept secret for 30 years after the modest pressing reason to keep it secret (the war) had ended. Considering what's at stake here, complete, prolonged secrecy is not only plausible but something we should expect.

Yes we have been over this before. Obviously ETHers can always find a reason why the secret could, or might, have been kept for 63 years. In fact they have to give this reason, otherwise their 'Roswell was ET' thesis falls to pieces.

CDA -- I regret that I must demur, Sir. To quote Dr. Johnson, "the notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had it been kind; but it has been delayed 'til I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it, 'til I am solitary and cannot impart it; 'till I am known and do not want it.

And it's perfectly valid. Proof of unearthly beings way ahead of us WOULD lead to considerable hysteria. If or since proof was recovered, a complete coverup is essential to avert such consequences. As part of it, the bulk of the scientific community would have to remain in the dark along with nearly everyone else. Under the circumstances, they have no choice but to look elsewhere.

cda again naively writes:Yes we have been over this before. Obviously ETHers can always find a reason why the secret could, or might, have been kept for 63 years. In fact they have to give this reason, otherwise their 'Roswell was ET' thesis falls to pieces.

Secrets by their nature are secrets until they are not. I bet even cda has a secret or two he'll carry with him to his grave. Doesn't mean they aren't true.

Governments have all sorts of deep, dark, dirty secrets locked away. The more dangerous the secrets, the longer it takes before they are declassified, if they ever are. The number of classified documents for the U.S. alone is in the billions. I have heard there are still classified WWI documents.

An example of a U.S. dirty secret that recently came to light was Operation Northwood, a Joint Chiefs plan from 1962 to create terrorist attacks against American citizens and military personnel and blame the Cubans for them, as a pretext to invade Cuba. It was personally killed by Kennedy, who fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs because of it, and incurred the wrath of the defense establishment. A year later, Kennedy himself was killed.

The documents were supposed to have been destroyed, but a copy survived in previously classified Kennedy defense documents declassified and released in 1997 as a result of the "President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act" of 1992.

This is about as dirty as it gets, basically government sponsored mass murder of innocents, frame-ups of innocents, etc. It came to public light purely by accident, and had the destroy order been properly implemented, we probably still wouldn't know about it, might never have known about it. In fact, I'm not aware of anybody within the Kennedy Administration or the defense establishment ever breathing a word about such a plan. The secrecy was complete.

But cda knows deep dark secrets like this cannot be kept secret for decades because he personally cannot believe it. And if they do finally become public after being buried and forgotten about for decades, then they were nothing events to begin with.

Does DR seriously think that the 'dirty tricks' secrets the US government possesses in any way compares with secrets such as the crash or visit of a craft from an extraterrestrial civilisation?

The first is under the control of one government, the second is not under anyone's control, and DR ought to know this. It is like trying to keep secrets about a meteorite fall, a tsunami or a small asteroid collision. Such things are, by their very nature, likely to happen again at any time.

There is also the tremendous prestige value, and value to science, for a country to be first with the news.

I am waiting for a real UFO crash in China or Siberia. Then, when that is made public (as it would be pretty quickly once the facts were established), what will happen? Will the US suddenly speak out and announce that "It all happened here first, in 1947, but we kept quiet about it".

I liked David Rudiak analogies between hard things and event, beeing compared to Roswell UFO case, as reasons to maintain the Big Secret of all times. Huu, that's rock!

What a shame for the real victims of such real events, to be compared and used to serve the Roswell UFO case, imho. Dont find my words...

Mass murder of innocents... Yeah, it was the case in the Roswell event. Awesome...

Pfiou, such conspirationists have a very strange rethoric and no respect for real victims.

At least, to follow you, cause this crash, you have discovered Nitinol, optics-fibers et so on.

You can now crash your balsa spacecraft in another primitive planet, as the Roswell craft did. And that another planet and world will discover what USAAF have discovered, not the other countries on Hearth.

CDA said: “…we have documentation that an array of balloons went up sometime early on the morning of June 4. … and … We do NOT need to know what the serial number was (flight 4, 3A, 3B or whatever).” Let the record show that on this day I completely agree with a statement that CDA made. Moreover, I think DR and Gilles also agree that a balloon train was launched on June 4, whatever designation we give it. Personally, I have been confused by DR’s assertions to the effect that there were no “Mogul” flights on June 4, followed immediately by the assertion that there was a service flight on that date, not a research flight. My interpretation is that both research and service flights could be described as “Mogul” flights. So let’s stop arguing about terminology and simply refer to the balloon fight as the June 4 flight, or something similar.

Having said that, I think DR’s interpretation of events is the correct one—the flight that was first planned for the morning of June 4 was intended to be a research flight, but was cancelled when the weather failed to meet the minimums set by the CAA for flight safety. Once the primary mission was scrubbed but all the team and resources were in place and mobilized, someone appears to have made a command decision to fly a “special” package on a service flight, instead.

CDA continued: “…This flight was not recovered at the time and no further record of it exists, other than one man's distant memory. “

Yes, it was not recovered at the time, but it’s not exactly true that no further record of Flight #4 exists. The NYU Technical Report No 1 is such a record. It says (page 27):

“The flight numbering system has been revised since its inception and now only those flights in which an attempt was made to control the altitude of the balloon are includedin the summary. Excluded are flights made to test special gear…”

Since no altitude data from a balloon flight on June 4 is presented in the summary, the clear implication is that no attempt was made to control the altitude of that flight. This clearly supports DR’s interpretation that the June 4 flight was a service flight, not a research flight and, most importantly, no altitude control system was present.

This might be a good place to pause and note some errors in Moore’s reasoning in “UFO Crash at Roswell” that underpinned his analysis and conclusion that the June 4 flight probably resulted in the material found at the Foster Ranch. He states (p. 84) in regard to the June 4 flight: “… There is no mention of this flight in the NYU summary because no altitude data or ground track were obtained. …” There are two things wrong with this. First, as noted above, this conflicts with his claim in the same document that the balloon train actually was tracked by theodolite, aircraft, and ground based radar. Second, the NYU Summary (which he helped co-author in 1949) clearly states that the reason for not including flights in the summary was not absence of tracking but absence of an intent to control the altitude of the flight. These are two entirely separate and distinct physical processes, which Moore seems to have confused. Absence of an intent to control the altitude clearly conflicts with the other assertion of Moore that “… I think that Flight #4 used our best equipment (i.e., altitude control system) and probably performed about as well as or better than Flight #5. …” (p 105). Finally, even if an altitude control system had been present on the June 4 flight, it would have to have functioned better than (not merely “as well as”) the next two flights in June in which altitude control was attempted, using the same hardware, in order to have made it to the Foster Ranch. What would be the physical basis for such an assumption in the absence of any actual data? Moore clearly just made this stuff up.

The one thing that Moore did accomplish with his analysis (even taking into account his possibly sloppy computation and atmospheric modeling) was to show that the presence of a (better than) perfectly functioning “dribbler” was absolutely necessary in order for the balloon train to get from Alamogordo to the Foster Ranch. If there was no such system on Flight #4, then there was no physical way for it to get to the Ranch; it could not have stayed in the stratosphere long enough. It’s altitude vs time profile would have been very similar to that of Flight #6, (in which the altitude control system failed at take-off). In that flight, the balloon train went more or less straight up and then straight down, spending only a fraction of the time in the stratosphere that would have been necessary to get it on a trajectory to the Foster Ranch. If I’m not mistaken, DR showed that a balloon flight following this altitude profile would have fallen short of the Foster Ranch by many tens of miles. The idea that Flight #4 “probably” landed at the Foster Ranch is not even wrong, it’s B.S. Using a more physically realistic set of assumptions than the ones Moore hand picked to buttress his preconception, it is more likely that Flight #4 probably landed out in the New Mexico desert somewhere, many miles from the Foster Ranch.

CDA also said “We have two newspaper reports, the RDR and the FW Telegram that BOTH give very similar descriptions of the debris. These accounts strongly suggest balloon and radar target debris, to me anyway.”

Again, I agree. Some aspects of the descriptions are evocative of the materials used in balloons and radar targets; some are not. It was a reasonable conjecture on Moore’s part that the materials might be explained by the presence of Mogul balloon trains. However, in the absence of a physical mechanism to get the balloon train from Alamogordo to the Foster Ranch, it didn’t happen. The history of science is full of reasonable sounding speculation that just didn’t happen to be true. I’ll go with the physics over the speculation. That’s why the more likely explanation for the introduction of the balloon material into the newspapers’ stories is a cover story.

Are you saying that two newspapers, from different towns (Ft Worth and Roswell) both got their accounts of the debris wrong, or are both cover stories? Are you saying that the two separate accounts in the RDR are both either wrong or cover stories?

You are assuming an amazing ability of the military to coordinate two separate cover stories in a short space of time on one day. We have separate descriptions of what was found. You are suggesting this was not what was actually found but a cover story (in both cases). Isn't this taking things a bit too far? Did this 'cover story' originate from Roswell, Ft Worth, Dayton or Washington? And how was it so cleverly arranged, without any cock-ups? A 2-way, or even 3-way, cover story as well.

It all smacks of someone using hindsight (i.e. someone knowing all about the post-1978 evidence about supposed ETs), then going back and re-constructing a scenario whereby the original press reports MIGHT have been cover stories. In other words, you are manufacturing a supposed press 'cover story' using hindsight, to bolster the ET case.

This kind of reasoning is every bit as bad as trying to argue endlessly about whether flight #4 was the real culprit or not. We DO NOT KNOW exactly what flight#4 consisted of. We cannot calculate with accuracy where it landed. We CAN calculate approximately, if certain assumptions are made. We know the wind directions, and so on. Moore may have biased his figures, Rudiak may have biased his but calls Moore a liar. So where do we stand?

On balance, the only reasonable answer is that the two press reports are near enough accurate and that the debris WAS from a balloon & radar target and launched, probably, from a nearby AF base. The Ft Worth photos bear this out. Again, we do not know what those photos omit, neither do we know what else was retrieved but never displayed. We do know the FBI were notified (and presumably NOT lied to).

Neither J Bond Johnson nor Jason Kellahin ever said their written reports were dictated, or forced onto them, by the military. Neither did the two newspaper editors. So where is the real evidence for a 'cover story'?

"The first is under the control of one government, the second is not under anyone's control..."

But there are few crash cases which appear valid, and they're under US government control. I don't think there was a real Russian, Chinese or Mexican Roswell. Not that it really matters, for while a crash might occur anytime and anywhere, it would come under SOME government's control, and that government, if friendly, would let the US deal with it, as Brazil apparently did in '96. Or it would still cover it up, for the same very good reasons--the prevention of mass hysteria and possibly, efforts at secret duplication, to gain an edge over other nations.

"There is also the tremendous prestige value, and great value to science for a country to be first with the news."

Unfortunately, that is greatly overshadowed by the potentially ruinous effects of disclosure. Some "prestige" if you're country is dissolving into panic or chaos.

Starman:So you think the country where another crash occurs, if friendly towards the US, "would let the US deal with it". Really?

What an extraordinary supposition.

I seriously doubt your hypothesis. And what if that country is Russia or China?

And your other idea, that we, 'homo sapiens' are unfit to be told of such a discovery, is equally dubious (to put it mildly).

What you are saying, in effect, is that no matter which scientists in which country make this epoch-making discovery, i.e. that ETs have visited our planet, the rest of the world can never be told this fact. It would be 'too dangerous' for society.

And so on, and on. There is always an excuse (there has to be) for the fact that no documentation, hardware or bodies have turned up.

Part 1:CDA responded to Larry: (Again so much nonsense, so little time)Are you saying that two newspapers, from different towns (Ft Worth and Roswell) both got their accounts of the debris wrong, or are both cover stories? Are you saying that the two separate accounts in the RDR are both either wrong or cover stories?

The reporters, editors, and newspapers printed what they were told, just like they do today. If they were fed a cover story, they printed a cover story. If they were given the real info, they print that. All you can tell from the newspapers is how the story was reported, not necessarily what the truth was.

One case in point, 1960 U2 incident. The newspapers were fed a cover story that it was an errant NASA weather plane. NASA dutifully released faked transcripts of the pilot’s last moments as he supposedly passed out from oxygen deprivation, leading to the “weather plane” supposedly drifting off course over Russian territory. At Edward’s AFB, a U2 was repainted to sport a NASA logo with a fake aircraft ID number. If you just went by what the American press was told initially, there was no spy plane and the Russian’s were lying.

In this case, the cover story didn’t hold because the U.S. government couldn’t control everything. They could lie to and manipulate the press, but not the Russians. The Russians quickly exploded the story by parading out a still very-much-alive pilot and displaying the wrecked plane with spy cameras that the CIA thought had been destroyed.

You are assuming an amazing ability of the military to coordinate two separate cover stories in a short space of time on one day.

What’s so “amazing” about it? CDA may not believe it, but electronic communications, like telephones, existed in the Colonies even back in 1947.

I suppose CDA similarly believes that it was impossible or “amazing” for the CIA to quickly coordinate a U-2 cover story for the White House, NASA, and Edwards AFB?

Brazel’s interview took place several hours after Ramey began putting out the weather balloon story in Fort Worth, so plenty of time to coach Brazel in what to say and try to make it coordinate with the new official explanation out of Fort Worth.

We have separate descriptions of what was found.

Typical CDA argument by assertion. CDA is slipping in an assumption that the descriptions were “separate” or independent, but it would be quite easy to coordinate the stories in Roswell and Fort Worth to be similar-- that old electronic communications thing again.

You are suggesting this was not what was actually found but a cover story (in both cases). Isn't this taking things a bit too far?

Yes, that is exactly what the “pro-Roswell” side has been saying for three decades. You’re just catching on? Why is it taking it too far? Do you think this would be some unique example of a government lying to the press and public? If you do, then you are incredibly naïve and not well-versed in history.

Did this 'cover story' originate from Roswell, Ft Worth, Dayton or Washington?

Does not knowing for sure where the cover story originated in any way negate that there was a cover story? I couldn’t tell you who exactly who put together the U-2 cover story, but so what? It was a cover story.

Part 2:And how was it so cleverly arranged, without any cock-ups? A 2-way, or even 3-way, cover story as well.

Actually there were numerous “cock-ups”, but not enough to derail anything since the press wasn’t digging very deep. I have pointed out the conflicts many times before. But I guess the debunkers could care less since it varies from the script started by the USAF in 1994 that the newspaper stories and photos from back then all exactly agreed on details and perfectly fit a Mogul balloon crash.

The stories of the quoted principals like Brazel, Marcel, Wilcox, and Ramey seriously conflict in many ways. Wilcox even contradicted himself depending on whom he spoke to as. Brazel recanted his balloon story at the end. Brazel claimed he reported something entirely different to Wilcox (“flying disc”) than Wilcox said (“weather meter”). Marcel radically contradicted Brazel about when he picked up the debris and the size of the debris field (“square mile”), which also strongly contradicted Ramey’s story and what is shown in the Fort Worth photos. The photos conflict in serious ways with Mack Brazel’s story of the condition and quantity of the debris, not to mention a Mogul crash. Was the boxkite the 3-4 feet across of Wilcox or a real radar target, or the 25 feet across of Ramey? Where did Ramey get such an absurd number? Why was Ramey giving a “hexagonal” description of the radar target before claiming to know what it was? That description would only apply to an intact, assembled radar target, not one torn up and lying flat on the floor. The base press release clashed with the story from Fort Worth and Brazel’s later story of when he found the debris and Wilcox who couldn’t make up his mind whether it was mid-June or early July.

I have argued for a long time this all smacks of a hastily assembled and imperfectly coordinated cover story, but the press and public were eager to dismiss the story of a crashed flying disc and bought completely that it was some colossal screw-up by some stupid military officers or a PIO. Nobody did any digging.

It all smacks of someone using hindsight (i.e. someone knowing all about the post-1978 evidence about supposed ETs), then going back and re-constructing a scenario whereby the original press reports MIGHT have been cover stories. In other words, you are manufacturing a supposed press 'cover story' using hindsight, to bolster the ET case.

So is CDA admitting the cover story in retrospect supports the arguments of the pro-ETers? I have no idea. Somebody may have to translate his statement for me.

But historically the sequence was first they said they had a flying disc, which Ramey quickly changed to a singular weather balloon and a 25 foot radar target which Marcel said was scattered over a square mile, while back in Washington the AAF was specifically denying the flying discs were “space ships”. The military followed up the next few days with a national debunking campaign to try to convince the public they were indeed just seeing weather balloons instead of mysterious flying saucers. 47 years after Roswell the Air Force changed to a giant Mogul balloon made up of many weather balloons and radar targets, then adding three years later crash dummies from the 1950s.

Make of that what you will. Let us just say that the Air Force has gone through a curious evolution of “explanations”.

Part 3:This kind of reasoning is every bit as bad as trying to argue endlessly about whether flight #4 was the real culprit or not. We DO NOT KNOW exactly what flight#4 consisted of.

We do know. It consisted of exactly nothing, since the absence of its existence in Mogul records make it quite clear it never flew. The same is true of equally absent Flights #2, #3, and #9. Flight #2 was explicitly stated as never getting off the ground because of high winds and equipment failure, with all equipment removed and balloons cut loose, but the AF debunkers lied and claimed it too was launched, apparently to create a fake table filling in the Mogul numbering gap between the real Flights #1 & #5, thus to bolster the argument of a nonexistent Flight #4. See how easy it is to create nonexistent balloon flights through simple lying?

There is a surviving schematic of how #2 was supposed to be configured, but that is academic since it never flew. You can’t have crash debris from a nonexistent flight no matter what the intent was on how to configure it.

We cannot calculate with accuracy where it landed.

The “accuracy” argument sure didn’t stop Charles Moore from claiming that the winds were “exactly right” to take the balloon to the Foster ranch and he had calculated a trajectory that took it “exactly” there. This was trumpeted by debunkers as being virtual proof of the Mogul Flight #4 theory.

The problem was Moore’s trajectory was a hoax. You certainly CAN model what the true trajectory should have been had Moore played it straight, and it isn’t what Moore claimed, certainly not “exactly” to the ranch, not even remotely close.

But if there was no Mogul flight, contrary to those unreliable “post-1978” claims of Moore and the USAF debunkers, again it’s all academic: No Mogul flight, no Mogul balloon to crash on the Foster Ranch. Doesn’t matter what the winds were or what assumptions you make or how you model. Similarly, it doesn’t matter what calculation we might make for where Flight #2 would have ended up, since it never flew.

We CAN calculate approximately, if certain assumptions are made. We know the wind directions, and so on. Moore may have biased his figures,

Yes, I do love the debunker propaganda spin. Deliberate cheating with the numbers becomes “may have biased his figures”.

“Teacher, I resent you accusing me of cheating on the math test. However, I ‘may have biased my figures’ by copying off my neighbor.” “Senator, I deeply resent you accusing Enron of fraud. However, we ‘may have biased our figures’ by creating phony offshore corporations and accounts.”

On balance, the only reasonable answer is that the two press reports are near enough accurate and that the debris WAS from a balloon & radar target and launched, probably, from a nearby AF base.

Of course the displayed debris in Fort Worth is from a balloon & radar target. Duhhhh! But that doesn’t somehow prove it came from Roswell.

And since Brazel didn’t talk until well after the FW demonstration and there would have been plenty of time to coach him in the meantime, his description likewise doesn’t prove that is what he found at his ranch. He also recanted his own balloon testimony at the end, didn’t he? And there are some serious conflicts between his story and what was shown and said in Fort Worth. For starters, where is Brazel’s “flower tape” in the photos?

Really, can we “presume” that? There is a whole known history of J.Edgar Hoover grousing how the Army wasn’t sharing their flying disc information with the FBI, starting only two days after Roswell. But you conclude they presumably weren’t lied to.

How about the Dallas FBI being told that the Cincinnati FBI would be informed of the results of the examination of the “flying disc” being flown to Wright Field? But nobody, including the GAO, has ever found the FBI being further informed of anything. So either they were informed and the FBI document or documents are mysteriously missing from FBI files, or they weren’t informed, in which case they WERE lied to about this.

Neither J Bond Johnson nor Jason Kellahin ever said their written reports were dictated, or forced onto them, by the military. Neither did the two newspaper editors. So where is the real evidence for a 'cover story'?

Now CDA slipping into one of his typical strawman arguments. NOBODY has EVER said the reporters or the newspapers were strong-armed into printing anything about Roswell. Is CDA just flagrantly lying here, or is he like Moore, just “biasing his figures” a bit? Well, CDA, explain yourself.

Reporters and newspapers generally “report” only what they are told. Little investigative journalism ever takes place. So if they are told lies and there is no way to determine this if they do try to do fact checking, that is what gets printed, like what happened with the U2 spy plane story initially. No need to coerce the press. Without contradictory information they just published the official story, only to discover a few days later, in the U2 example, that they had been badly manipulated and told a pack of lies.

Allow me to repeat the abundantly obvious again. Historical newspaper stories tell us only how a story was reported, not whether the stories are necessarily the whole truth or not. In fact they can’t be when they contradict themselves on key points, as do the various Roswell stories. That is why it is absurd to restrict ourselves to only what was reported originally and not listen to witnesses in the present. No sensible historian would restrict themself that way. If there was a cover-up in play, the original story will not be an accurate account of what actually happened, with the truth only coming out later when witnesses begin to talk, documents finally emerge, the government finally admits what happened because it no longer matters, etc. There are many historical examples of this: first A-bomb Trinity test, Watergate, Gulf of Tonkin incident, Mai-Lai massacre, U-2 incident, experimental top secret A-2 crash, astronaut spies in space, etc., etc.

The press was lied to or given cover stories in every case. The stories weren't always perfect and sometimes the press smelled a rat. But when you have no way at the time to get at the real story, there isn't much else you can print.

DR has obviously decided to ignore my addendum. I specifically corrected my 'flight #4' to what I meant, namely the early June 4 launch. I said "I have to cover myself in case DR insists flight #4 did not exist". This is exactly the response he gives. DR has therefore wasted several sentences on flight#4's non-existence when I was referring to something else.

To suggest, as he does, that the USAF lied to the FBI, is poppycock. He HAS to postulate this lie to bolster his general thesis that everything issued by officialdom about Roswell since about noon on July 8, 1947 was a lie. A lie to conceal the true nature of the downed object. The AF had a perfectly good alternative - to say NOTHING at all to the FBI.

In fact, Gilles and myself are close to being liars (perhaps not quite), other skeptics do not know what they are talking about, the USAF (e.g. Weaver & McAndrew) naturally are liars and always have been over Roswell, Charles Moore was a liar, Ramey was a liar in 1947 and at the famous July 29, 1952 press conference, Blanchard was a liar, Brazel was forced to lie, the whole of Bluebook was a farce, Ruppelt was a dupe, the Condon, Battelle and Robertson guys etc were all dupes. In fact anybody and everybody who knew this great secret has lied or kept his mouth shut for 63 years, whilst the entire US space programme has proceeded along false pretenses, etc. etc. (Remember that one of NASA's aims, when it was created, was to search for life in space).

Oh, and every US president since '47 has maintained this lie (or has possibly been kept in the dark).

But DR, who, like Friedman is besotted with 'Roswell is ET', cannot see the absurdities of the above.

Senator Truman was chair of the war investigating committee (aka The Truman Committee)and in 1942 and 1943 attempted to get information on what the secret projects were that Congress was funding. But he didn't have a need to know, so he was put off.

One story had it that "he accosted an atomic bomb worker and asked him what he was working on.

Where there any news stories before Roswell about the flying discs that implied the army was hiding something from the public, and that the secrecy was comparable to the Manhattan Project?

These "rumors" began immediately after the Ft Worth 'reveal' in General Ramey's office. Not all news reporters and editors were convinced of the official story. But they were convinced, I think, that it was not in their best interest to investigate. Eventually Roswell faded from recollection.

This opinion among some newsmen would become known later in the work of Scully, Keyhoe, and Edwards, but it was already there on July 9, 1947 associated with Roswell.

Don:Yes, probably not all newspaper editors would have been convinced of the official story of July 8, but those that did have doubts were of the idea that a secret US device was under development, or possibly had ideas of a stray Russian missile. Their suspicions & thoughts would not have been towards a crashed ET craft, in July '47.

"So you think the country where another crash occurs...would let the US deal with it. Really?"

Sure. What would be the use of a small, allied nation keeping proof of ETs--it doesn't have the facilities to properly analyze the material, let alone duplicate it. Moreover, aliens might threaten the security of the whole globe. The whole issue and related evidence should be left to the predominant power, the US. Only a major power or powers can properly coordinate global defense, should the need ever arise. The big nations have, in theory, the best chance of dealing with ET, so any material should be given to them for the best possible analysis, and possible duplication--it might be a matter of life and death for all of us.

"the rest of the world can never be told the truth."

I didn't say NEVER. At some future date, the public may be deemed ready for disclosure, or they may have to make an announcement e.g. civil defense.

Actually, they don't say. 'ET' is not a concept that's available to them. They barely comprehend there's anything beyond our solar system. However, references to what language was available occurs: Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Men from Mars.

Answer me this: why is the air force interested at all? Why do they become the keeper of the "Projects"? Why are there any in the first place? Why are Army counter intelligence agents investigating civilians reporting sightings?

The idea that the disks might be Soviet was the first to be dropped. It was mentioned, I think, because it was a bullet-item on the list and remained on it due to bureaucratic inertia until it was dropped. I do not think it was a serious consideration. The Germans didn't have the technology and the Soviets didn't have the capability of producing what the air force meant by flying disk, even if they got it from Germany which they didn't.

If they weren't Soviet, then why should the air forces be interested, especially if they were of the opinion that the disks were natural phenomena, hoaxes, or reports by unreliable citizens?

"Yes, probably not all newspaper editors would have been convinced of the official story of July 8"

There's a psychological dimension not addressed in these 'what would they do with ET and its technology'? One can compare it to Tolkien's One Ring. There would be little desire to share because of its potential for personal, political and economic power.

Don:What period are you talking about? The sightings of 1946 in Scandinavia were suspected to be of Russian origin, based perhaps on captured German technology.The sightings of 1947 in the US were suspected at first of being of US origin, then later, of Russian origin. As time went by, both these hypotheses gradually faded, and the objects were thought more & more to be of natural origin, or psychological phenomena, aided by 'war nerves'. After Keyhoe came onto the scene the interplanetary origin gained ground rapidly.

In July '47 the main fear was the objects might be either US secret devices or possibly, errant Russian missiles.

I assume that any newspaper editors or broadcasters who were told the balloon plus radar reflector story for Roswell, and who had doubts over it, would have focused their ideas towards the secret US weapon hypothesis. I do not discount the idea that a few (very few) might have leaned towards the ET origins of some of the sightings, but somehow I doubt if a single one ever considered what was recovered in the NM desert was an ET craft.

There was simply no reason to, and the debris description was totally removed from such an idea.

I don't know if this is sufficient response to you, but that is my way of thinking, from hindsight of 6 decades of course.

As to your main concern over that Haut press release, I repeat my contention that it was done so that the RAAF could be "firstest with the mostest", or possibly, to even claim the $3000 prize. Whichever is correct, it was a gross error of judgment.

Since Korff is supposed to be the real subject of this blog, perhaps we can pop the question to him: What do you think, Mr Korff?(Answer: silence)

The "wave" period, traditionally, 1947-1952. I don't know when the air force dropped the notion the disks were Soviet. My guess is in late 1947 if not before, no matter it was still a bullet on the list. Probably when they lost interest in the Hortens, or in deploying the Flying Wing.

"As to your main concern over that Haut press release, I repeat my contention that it was done so that the RAAF could be "firstest with the mostest", or possibly, to even claim the $3000 prize. Whichever is correct, it was a gross error of judgment."

There is nothing at all to support that opinion. Here's another: The (AP) press release was intended for local consumption only as a response to "the many rumors". It was a surprise to Blanchard that it went national. There's nothing at all to support that, either.

What we do know is that Blanchard, Marcel, and Haut were competent and intelligent men. Cavitt was not shy in characterizing people including those at the RAAF in 1947. There were several men he had a low opinion of. Neither one was Blanchard, Marcel, or Haut.

Unless it can be proved a hoax, the RAAF issued a press release informing the world that it had possession of a flying disk. Unlike everyone else in the US, the air forces meant something specific by 'flying disk' -- no issue here that it is ET, but still something not merely unidentifiable, but unexplainable.

Don wrote:Here's a snippet from a Scripps-Howard Capitol summary, July 13, 1947 with the header Army Playing Saucer Joke?

"Don't laugh too hard at those flying disc stories. There's considerable evidence of organized army campaign to make you laugh. And not all that's known on them has been printed."

Don, I thought I'd read just about everything from that period, but I don't have this. Could you provide the specific reference and maybe forward the article to me in email?

This is another excellent example of where the newspapers were explicitly stating that the military was engaged in a saucer debunkery campaign following Roswell:

UP, July 9, lead sentence of Roswell story: "Reports of flying saucers whizzing through the sky fell off sharply today as the Army and Navy began a concentrated campaign to stop the rumors."

INS Roswell story, July 9: "Reports of the saucers fell off sharply as the Army and Navy began a concentrated campaign to stop the rumors."

INS Roswell story, (source Arizona Republic, July 10): "CHICAGO, July 9--(INS)--Reports of "flying discs" diminished sharply tonight throughout the nation as each new discovery blew up in the face of army and navy investigation."

"When Navy and USAAF made their best to avoid mistakes, cause "mass hysteria" that's a debunkery campaign ?"

Gilles, Starman, what mass hysteria? There was never the slightest hint anyone was ever hysterical over the disks. Curious, fascinated, amused yes. Hysterical, no.

Politicians, counter intelligence, and others with an agenda that could use it, promoted the notion. They were just talking up their interests...those who'd like an opportunity to impose martial law or whatever, I guess.

People just wanted to know. They gave no indication they'd go running hysterically through the streets if they knew.

"When Navy and USAAF made their best to avoid mistakes, cause "mass hysteria" that's a debunkery campaign ?

Gilles, I know knee-jerk psychological denial is your usual response, as is the case of most debunkers, but I have researched this period quite a bit, and it is quite obvious there was some sort of debunkery campaign going on to ridicule the saucers. If you are serious about learning more instead of just reflexively reacting, try reading some of the historical references I provided, though Don's provided quote alone makes it obvious what was going on:

"Don't laugh too hard at those flying disc stories. There's considerable evidence of organized army campaign to make you laugh. And not all that's known on them has been printed."

There was a campaign of deliberate ridicule so that that the public wouldn't take the subject seriously.

Re the so-called debunking campaign, the press claimed the Army & Navy were trying to "stop the rumors". The 'rumors' being the one foolishly mentioned in Haut's press release.

"The many rumors regarding the flying disc...."

They were not rumors, they were sightings, real or imagined. So what were the 'rumors'? Presumably these were the stories about the ONE disc alleged to have been captured in the NM desert. The 'rumors' all referred to this one 'disc' (which was not seen in the sky by anyone).

The Army (why the Navy?) were out to scotch such rumors. After all, the wreckage recovered did not resemble a 'flying disc' in the smallest detail.

It sounds as if the military hoped that identifying this one 'captured disc' would help stop further flying disc sightings. Perhaps it did, for a brief period. But not for long.

But that is rather different from an orchestrated cover-up of the nature of the Roswell 'disc'.

Gilles wrote:"When Navy and USAAF made their best to avoid mistakes, cause "mass hysteria" that's a debunkery campaign ?"

Don commented:Gilles, Starman, what mass hysteria? There was never the slightest hint anyone was ever hysterical over the disks. Curious, fascinated, amused yes. Hysterical, no.

Well, much as I hate to say it, I have to side more with Gilles on this one. There are certainly hints that at least some of the public was anxious over the reported flying saucers and there was official concern over mass hysteria.

I've already quoted the Daily Illini comment to the effect that newspaper editors were relieved it was just a weather balloon and not "men from Mars".

There were other quotes like this, such as the Chicago Tribune Roswell story, July 9: "A disk-jittery nation was treated to a two hour step-up in its platter panic today when an army press agent mistook remnants of a weather balloon for one of the mysterious sky saucers hundreds of persons recently have reported they thought they saw in the air. ...Newspapers were flooded with phone calls..."

A widely reported mass sighting in the Palestine, TX area the night of July 8, included one man shooting a box of rifle bullets at the objects and Negroes in the area praying thinking it the "end of the world."

Similar "end of the world" talk came from an earlier sighting in Oklahoma on June 25, where the man said he decided against waking his neighbors, preferring to let them sleep in case it was the end of the world.

My favorite "end of the world" item, however, came from Kenneth Arnold himself, who in a newspaper article from June 28, recounted an uncomfortable encounter he had with a panicky woman and a preacher telling him the saucers signaled the end of the world.

As reported in the Bremerton WA Sun, Arnold said, "I haven't had a moment of peace since I first told the story." He then said a preacher had called and told him that the objects he saw were "harbingers of doomsday" and that the preacher was preparing his congregation "for the end of the world."

But that wasn't half as bad as an encounter he had with a woman in a Pendleton (WA) cafe who looked at him and dashed out shrieking, "There's the man who saw the men from Mars." She ran out "sobbing she would have to do something for the children" Arnold was reported saying "with a shudder".

He then added that, "This whole thing has gotten out of hand. I want to talk to the FBI or someone. Half the people look at me as a combination of Einstein, Flash Gordon and screwball."

Only two days later, Gen. Ramey and Col. Kalberer in Fort Worth started ridiculing the idea that the saucers were space ships or that we were being invaded from Mars, Kalberer specifically referencing the panic generated by the Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast of 1938. (He likewise employed ridicule when he compared the reported flying saucers to stories of sea serpents.)

So, yes, definitely indications of panic, fear, and anxiety by some segment of the public, plus the military running a debunking campaign, including ridicule of the saucers, to try to calm people down. President Truman was also reported getting into the debunking act. At a press conference July 10, Truman compared the stories of flying saucers to the "Great Moon Hoax" of 1835, where the New York Sun ran a series of articles of the discovery of man-bats living on the moon seen through a secret, powerful telescope.

In a story July 9, Truman's press secretary was likewise quoted making light of the saucer stories, saying Truman received a telegram from a juggler claiming to be responsible, saying he was playing around with saucers and they "just got out of hand."

Thank you to threat me as "debunker" or other attacks, just because I dont share your "views" and believings and opinions dear David. Usual, David...

Don, about "mass hysteria".

Do you know "Beert case" (Holland, 1975) ? Newspapers received pictures of alleged UFO and made a call to obtain witnesses. Hundreds calls were obtained, testimoning to have seen something "unusual" or "like the pictures published" in the days after the publication of the article and the call to witnesses.

Few days afters, some guys revealed it was an "UFO hoax", a prank, and hoaxed pictures!

In others words, by "Mass hysteria", I meant a sociopsychological phenomenom caused by medias after K.A observation mass published.

When the medias "force" the public to "believe" there are "UFOs", or are assuming that, proposing there are, many prosaïc things ( natural or artificial) become "UFOs" for observers cause they are shown in particular conditions or for the first time, or "at night", or just because "people like us" are watching the sky, etc.

Then, new observations and new testimonies are relayed by medias. And this in a period (1947) where there are no "UFO" models (UFO becoming IFO after to have been UFO), prosaic explanations for that new "phenomenom".

And an "auto-articulated" or feed-back" loop begins, as we say in human sciences. The phenomenom is auto-alimentated then, until to reach a limit:the banality.

Here you can note a "pic" of observations (Bloecher 1967 work).It was done in 5 6 7 july. After it decreases.

It decreases when the first rewards appeared (Independance Day week end in US radios, near 4 july), or then, in other words when the press is demanding more "sensationnalism", hard evidences because the banality. Exactly when Brazel and the few others protagonists experienced Foster Ranch RL experiment. The curve of alleged observation falls to "zero".

After, new things (S.F, moovies, books, etc) can make "revive" the phenomenom with a new semantic (extra-terrestrial ie.).

In other words, I dont see a "debunkery" campaign IN THE SENS USAAF or the Navy have something to hidde in 1947 (the Roswell -balsa- craft).

They have just reacted on that very new sociopsychological phenomenom imho (for the contemporans).

After then, because they are serious, of course, they have continued to investigate the phenomenom. There are many (de)-classified papers prooving that. OF course, they were interrested ! Wait :possible flying objects over USA is a "USA(A)F concerns, mainly if they could be soviets (after the domestic pist have been forgoted). And probably after to not risk it could be "ET" things. Nothing spectacular imho.

But imho, a fine analysis of such documents SHOW they have no one concrete evidence to hidde (aka an ET crash).

But some ET believers have jokers: "the no need know", mimetism and elusivity of the phenomenom! And other ad hoc arguments because all of this is FULLY dissonant with a legitimated and seducing "I want to believe on Flying Saucers", (extraterrestrial), that they are trapped in their "hypothesis confirmation bias". Some ufologists will note ALL which is compatible with their believings, because no one hard evidence.

Scientists prefer to work of "hard measures", not on testimonies. There are nothing offensing in this.

Mainly when testimonies are prooved not fiable sources by experimental sciences (human sciences).

"So, yes, definitely indications of panic, fear, and anxiety by some segment of the public, plus the military running a debunking campaign, including ridicule of the saucers, to try to calm people down."

American Christianity is reknowned for "end of the world" panics, beginning as far back as the Great Awakening in the 18th century, and continues on to this day. Isn't Obama the latest Antichrist (President Clinton, being the previous one, or so I was told by such a person).

In 1950, Drew Pearson (not an ETH'r by far) noted that the military's latest line concerned the device in Ezekiel.

"Harrassed over flying saucers, the Air Force now refers queries to the first chapter of the prophet Ezekiel who saw a living wheel in the heavens. Airmen are not arguing with Ezekiel, and cast no doubt upon what he saw. But they do cast doubt on modern prophets. They say they've tracked down every every flying saucer report, and there ain't no such animal" --Drew Pearson's column, March 31, 1950

Doesn't sound like they were attempting to cool off panicky fundamentalists and sectarians. Maybe they were encouraging them.

Americans were very concerned about another world war, this time an atomic one with the Soviets. So, it is downright weird that the military officers (and politicians and "public intellectuals") should be ridiculing the notion that the disks are piloted by men from Mars.

The proto-ETH public expressions seem to come more from the military than any other segment of society in this timeframe, in the form of denial or ridicule. Why is that?

One possibility is that, besides some church sects and occultists, the belief that the disks were ET was common.

Gilles, I don't quite know if this will convey my opinion of the methodology you advocate, but what is published is not all that there is to anything. What is published is crafted and not real data like in science.

You can only reach conclusions about what was published and that must take into account who published it and why. This is why I object to reaching conclusions about someone's memories based on some text written on a piece of paper by someone else, for example.

Perhaps the air force was whistling past the graveyard. They seemed to want to deny ET no matter there was any compelling reason to do so.

There's a sociopsychological phenomenon worth looking at, Gilles. What's up with these Airmen?

The expressions "Men from Mars" or "Martians" related to the flying disks follows on the 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds, but the expression "men from mars" goes back to at least 1902. How "men" got associated with Well's story, I do not know, as the Martians were hardly men. The expression may even be older than the story's publication (1898) but became associated with it.

The phrase was used to describe men in diving suits, dirty sandhogs and coal miners, men wearing gas masks and hazmat-like suits. It was used to describe foreigners, for example in a story from the 1920s, a group of Japanese scholars had come to the US to study our judicial system. They were described as "men from Mars" because the system they were studying was alien to their culture. Similarly it was used as a narrative trope: a Martian arrives on earth and comments on our culture. The literary purpose was social criticism. Sometimes instead of a Martian, it was a time traveller.

In the US, during WWII it was reattached to the enemy invader with a nod to the 1938 broadcast. German soldiers were described as "Men from Mars" in headlines and in the stories.

The instances of panic, fear, and concern during the 1938 broadcast was focused on the invasion rather than on who or what was invading. One of the reasons found for those responses was that people had not heard the introduction, nor did they hear the several times stations referred to the fictional nature of the play.

A difference between radio and television is that you do not have to be in front of a radio paying attention to hear it. Catching a brief news bulletin about an invading army in New Jersey set off people. All people had to do was scan the other stations to realize nothing was happening. Many just didn't. If it had been tv rather than radio the panic would not have occured.

One reason such hysteria was not likely with the flying disks is that they were not invading; no reports of cities being bombed; no landings of alien armies. The puzzle about the disks is they seemed to have no purpose. They were just there. Then they were gone. They were exactly a "mystery".

Soon enough the invading men from Mars became the little green men from Mars. AP reporter Robert E Geiger would write in a 1950 column "...some Air Force officials say they have discovered: many people hope those flying disks really are manned by little men from Mars". We are a long way from War of the Worlds.

Kenneth Arnold was irritated that he was beset by apocalyptic Christians, and people having flashbacks to 1938, that his peers were dismissive of his sighting, and angry that the authorities (FBI and army) would not give it the attention he felt his sighting required.

As a note, the man who recognized a threat but couldn't get anyone to believe him became a standard theme in science fiction films. I think Arnold was the model.

What do you are pointing is imho one of the premises (the #4) of the SocioPsychological Model/Theory/Hypothesis (PSH in english, we take Socio first here^^), as it have been proposed by french UFO-sceptics (Do you have the same refutable model in Great Britain and USA, I think?).

1# Continuity between ordinary and extroardinary:It exists a perfect continuity between a)The mistakes or confusions the more banal where the object(s) sighted will be perfectly and finaly identified despite a whitness have previously garanted it was an UFO, and b)the more complex cases.

This continuity makes the UFO sceptics think (at least myself) that the more complexe cases are in fact cases with an elevation of degrees of the same mistakes or missidentifications (complex mistakes), and not a difference in nature.

#2 The indiscernibility between non identified cases and identified cases (UFO/IFO):The cases which have been identified as certain identified flying objects, but previously taked as non identified, are presenting the SAME caracteristics of the cases remaining not identified. The ONLY difference is then the presence or absence of an explanation. Why then to suppose, like the ETH proponents suppose that those residual cases (unexplained cases) are in fact a distinct phenomenon?

More on this point, some ufologists admit that it was because they were very very lucky if sometimes they have found a prosaic explanation for some UFO cases. BTW, another problem with ufologists (ETH proponents) is that they are not agreed between them about the residual cases (each ufologist have his own top 10 best cases !), a little remark "confirming" this point about indiscernability ;)

#3 The non-strengthening of characteristics when selecting the "best" cases:UFOs seems to present extremaly variable caracteristics between them. BUT when we are etablishing criterions selection of the best UFO cases (multiple witnesses, physical "evidences", hight "strangeness", etc.), we are constasting nonone convergence toward common or precise caracteristics: The best cases present as many variable aspects as it is for the cases less attested, or identified (but previously non identified). It probably must not be the case if those best cases were on the responsability of a separated nature (ET, Gaïa, other dimensions, time travelers...).

#4 The pre-existence in our culture of all the UFO thematic: whether forms, prowess and physical effects of UFOs or extraterrestrial types and their alleged behavior are, including kidnappings, everything was already existing in previous cultural productions (science fiction, pulps) or older one (legends or folklore).So what the logical conclusion to make from this? For some ETH proponents, the intelligence responsible for UFOs adapts its manifestations in the context of time and manifests itself through our culture (mimetism).

For some UFO skeptics (at least myself), this prexistence serves as "frame" of the UFO explanation, which are prosaic in nature, but cause non identified, humans need a frame to explain the unknown by what is pre-existent. And S.F., legends, folklore are such frame to give an explanation to this unknown (in disguise).

Of course, all of this is REFUTABLE. But for more or less 60 years, there is none solid or hard evidence to refute the PSH.

Your #2 about the "indiscernability between non-identified cases and identified cases" is debatable. If Stan Friedman was on this blog he would soon point out the Chi-square tests done in Project Bluebook Report 14 (by Battelle Institute) which showed there was indeed a difference between the 'knowns' and the 'unknowns'.

Before someone rushes to Bluebook Report 14's defense, I should add that this statistical study has been debunked as next to worthless by Allan Hendry in his UFO HANDBOOK. Another important point was that Battelle did no investigations anyway. They merely re-evaluated the USAF reports from 1947-52 and revised the explanations in some cases. They were the first to use computers (with punched cards) to do a UFO study.

However their final conclusions differed from their own statistical results. But the ETHers can always point to this one official report to show how the UFOs and the IFOs are a different category of 'objects'.

Friedman often refers to this report (now 55 years old) to bolster his ET case, and then tells readers, falsely, that no skeptic has ever dared mention it in their subsequent books. (Both Hendry and Curtis Peebles did so).

Gilles: "What do you are pointing is imho one of the premises (the #4) of the SocioPsychological Model/Theory/Hypothesis"

and

"#4 The pre-existence in our culture of all the UFO thematic: whether forms, prowess and physical effects of UFOs or extraterrestrial types and their alleged behavior are, including kidnappings, everything was already existing in previous cultural productions (science fiction, pulps) or older one (legends or folklore).So what the logical conclusion to make from this?"

That words and concepts do not appear under cabbage leaves with the new morning's dew.

America has no immortels to attempt to apply order, logic, reason on American English by recommending usage, vocabulary and grammar. American English "just growed"

How it "growed" is through consensual transformations of existing words and concepts, especially through elaborations of metaphor and analogy. The pre-existence of "thematics" is a truism. It means nothing more than the language as it exists.

It was the USAF that played the role of immortels. "U.F.O. is their recommendation as is the concept. I think some research would show that "flying disk[c]" is its as well, and that "saucer" was for civilians.

Don wrote:The expressions "Men from Mars" or "Martians" related to the flying disks follows on the 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds, but the expression "men from mars" goes back to at least 1902. How "men" got associated with Well's story, I do not know, as the Martians were hardly men.

I think it's a combination of "men" being used in the very generic sense as sensient beings plus the alliterative appeal of "Men from Mars" rolling very naturally off the tongue. It's often hard to trace such origins.

"Little green men" is another one, used in all sorts of contexts, including alien ones, and going back to the turn of the 20th century and before, usually in fairy tales. Also commonly used to refer with derision to creatures in various types of hallucinations, such as drunken delirium, nightmares, crazy people, etc.

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote of the "green men of Mars" and "green Martian women" in "A Princess on Mars", first published in 1912. I have traced one instance of the phrase "little green men" emerging from a "space ship" being used in a satirical newspaper column Nov. 1, 1938, the day after Orson Welles' infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast.

One reason such hysteria was not likely with the flying disks is that they were not invading; no reports of cities being bombed; no landings of alien armies. The puzzle about the disks is they seemed to have no purpose. They were just there. Then they were gone. They were exactly a "mystery".

The sense I get from the newspapers is an undercurrent of unease or anxiety over the mysterious discs, with perhaps true panic among some. This was only two years after the end of a pretty horrific war, which we could have easily lost, the revelation of the superweapon A-bomb that could end civilization and built in total secrecy, with the cold war in its early stages and fears that the Russians would soon have their own A-bomb. Stories about the Russians stealing our atomic secrets were mixed in on the same front page as the Roswell stories. The public was already a little jittery. And then came the mysterious flying saucers.

The hysterical women who told Kenneth Arnold he was the one who saw the "men from Mars" and then ran home to be with her children was one such example of a person who read the worst into the saucers and interpreted them as being piloted by "Martians" who were going to destroy us.

Strange craft with superior characteristics to our own were being reported by some pretty respectable people, including Arnold and the United Airline crew on July 4 (that got even more publicity than Arnold). It seemed the military couldn't do anything about them, in fact came off in the news stories as fairly clueless as to what they could be.

There was also some speculation that maybe the Russians had made some spectacular advance in aviation, yet another reason to be fearful. There had been scare stories in the newspapers coming from military and government people throughout early 1947, right up to when Arnold reported his objects, about the Russians resorting to germ warfare to counter our A-bomb. Among the denials on July 8 as to what the saucers were NOT, was bacteriological weapons of a foreign power, addition to "space ships" or our own secret missiles.

So maybe people weren't "heading for the hills" yet, but there was some concern.

That's only one meaning of "mass hysteria", namely groupthink, or people irrationally thinking alike. The Salem witch trials are often cited as an example of this type of mass hysteria group thinking.

News media can play a role, such as when they were manipulated by the Bush administration into publishing stories about Saddam Hussein developing weapons of mass destruction, as a justification for invading Iraq. The actual intelligence never supported the claims. But the public was scared nonetheless.

But it can also go well beyond group belief to mean actual mass panic or terror as a result of something very real or perceived as being real, such a the panic that ensues when somebody shouts "Fire" in a theater, whether the fire turns out to be real or not. People tend to fear the worst, particularly when their lives or safety may be at stake.

On a big scale, 9/11 would be a good example, a real horrific event that scared the hell out of a lot of people, though perhaps exaggerated in the public mind as to its significance to the actual survival of the United States. But people felt very vulnerable, for understandable reasons, though the odds of being killed in a terrorist attack remained very low. The odds of dying from an auto accident or gunshot wound in the U.S. are far higher (10x as many people are killed every year by each than died in 9/11), just generally not as visible.

cda wrote:DR has obviously decided to ignore my addendum. I specifically corrected my 'flight #4' to what I meant, namely the early June 4 launch. I said "I have to cover myself in case DR insists flight #4 did not exist". This is exactly the response he gives. DR has therefore wasted several sentences on flight#4's non-existence when I was referring to something else.

The problem is the USAF debunkers insisted a “Flight #4” HAD to exist to explain everything, such as Brazel’s debris and debris field descriptions, or Bessie Brazel’s debris descriptions. But there was no Flight #4, nor was there a Flight #3, nor a Flight #2. McAndrew clearly fabricated the other two flights in order to bolster the idea of a real Flight #4, for which there is absolutely no record, just like no #2 or #3.

Moore, like CDA now, originally was suggesting in his affidavit that it wasn’t a Mogul constant-altitude flight but one of the smaller, “service flights”, which weren’t recorded. Then he flip-flopped and took the AF party line, culminating in his 1997 trajectory hoax in his book, in which “Flight #4” again became a necessity to make his model work.

To suggest, as he does, that the USAF lied to the FBI, is poppycock.

So all that was found at Roswell was one weather balloon and a radar target? That is what the FBI was told. That doesn’t fit even a small service flight, much less a much bigger Mogul. It also raises all sorts of conundrums as to why Brazel didn’t just bring it to Roswell with him, why Marcel and Blanchard even thought it worth investigating, and why Blanchard would think the top two intelligence people going out in two vehicles would be needed to investigate and pick up the debris.

The FBI was also told they would be informed by Wright Field of the results of their examination of the “disc” being flown to them, but nobody can find any such report, including the GAO in their investigation.

And then we also have the FBI files where Hoover afterward is angrily commenting about how the Army was withholding information from them or wasting their time chasing down “toilet seats” instead of participating in the good cases.

But to suggest the FBI was lied to is nothing but “poppycock” because CDA says so.

He HAS to postulate this lie to bolster his general thesis that everything issued by officialdom about Roswell since about noon on July 8, 1947 was a lie. A lie to conceal the true nature of the downed object. The AF had a perfectly good alternative - to say NOTHING at all to the FBI.

Not really an alternative once the base put out the very public press release. In fact, the FBI telegram says the FBI was being informed by the Army because of the widespread publicity. By law the FBI has the responsibility for the inner security of the U.S., so anything that public that might be interpreted as having security implications would necessarily lead to the FBI being told something, even if it was nothing but a bunch of “poppycock”.

Really, was the whole Roswell kerfluffle caused by nothing but a weather balloon with an attached radar target. If it wasn’t, then the FBI WAS lied to by definition.

In fact, Gilles and myself are close to being liars (perhaps not quite),

I recently accused CDA of lying when he invented another of his patented strawman arguments, in this case that the “pro-Roswell” people were claiming as part of a cover-up that reporters were coerced into publishing what the military wanted them to print. Nobody has ever said that. I asked CDA to explain himself. Has he explained himself?

David wrote: "The sense I get from the newspapers is an undercurrent of unease or anxiety over the mysterious discs, with perhaps true panic among some."

and

"The public was already a little jittery. And then came the mysterious flying saucers."

During the 1947 wave and before, the major news story was the fight over the tax bill. You can see it, for example, in the Arizona Republic headline the day Rhodes' photos were published, layered like a wedding cake, Tax bill, Roswell, Rhodes.

A major story on June 28 was General Eisenhower's assessment that a new world war could start within a year, and that the US military was not capable of fullfilling its strategic mission, and that we were a distant second to the Soviet Union.

Republicans claimed the army was illegally lobbying congressmen and even offering "pork barrel" (aka bribery) projects for their support against the deep cuts they wanted in the military budget.

Forrestal said the new DoD would be without funds and he would have to borrow from the army and the navy and run the shop on credit.

Just before July 4th, the army prevailed against the opposition (I don't know how) and got an additional 600 million dollars restored, most of it earmarked for the new USAF for advanced weaponry. About half was for "contractees" and the other half as "cash".

The military and the administration ratcheted up the war jitters in the country throughout the first half of the year reaching a crescendo with Eisenhower's statements.

So, yep. People were fearful. I think it was the army, though, who suggested the WotW scenarios.

Back in 1938, Republicans claimed the WotW broadcast was commissioned by the Roosevelt administration, as in their eyes the Democrats were the war party. They saw it as dirty electoral politics.

Part 2 response to cda:other skeptics do not know what they are talking about, the USAF (e.g. Weaver & McAndrew) naturally are liars and always have been over Roswell,

To cite the specific example I used recently, McAndrew claimed there was a real Flight #2, when the same Mogul report he cited very clearly said it was cancelled because of high winds and equipment failure, the instruments stripped off, and the balloons cut loose. He also claimed there was a Flight #3 in N.M. on May 29, when all that is said is two guys sent up a balloon and most of the Mogul team wasn’t even there yet. It would be quite impossible for a skeleton crew of 2 men on their own to assemble, launch, and track a true Mogul constant-altitude flight, unless you think 2 guys on their own could wrangle a 600 foot balloon train. So clearly another fabrication on McAndrew’s part of another totally nonexistent flight.

If McAndrew wasn’t a deliberate liar, then he was grossly incompetent or careless as a researcher.

Charles Moore was a liar, Ramey was a liar in 1947

So again was Roswell just a single weather balloon and radar target? That was Ramey’s story back then. If it wasn’t and Ramey knew it, then Ramey lied, by definition.

and at the famous July 29, 1952 press conference,

Gen. Samford did almost all the talking, Ramey adding only a few comments. Most of Ramey’s spin in 1952 was when he went on CBS TV and talked around reporter questions, rarely giving direct answers or speaking in meaningless generalities. Whether you want to call that lying or evasiveness is a matter of taste.

Blanchard was a liar,

CDA on another of his pointless rants. Blanchard’s press release said they found a “flying disc”. Was that a lie? The spin then and now is that radar targets could be confused with a flying disc, I think an attempt to deliberately confuse the issue.

Brazel was forced to lie,

The day after Marcel & Cavitt are at the ranch, Brazel for unexplained reasons is back in Roswell, a place he rarely visited except when he had to. He claims that after Marcel took the object back to Roswell, “that was the last he heard of it until the story broke that he had found a flying disk.” That is all quite impossible at the ranch, which had no electricity to power a radio or a telephone. So the only way Brazel could hear about it and respond so quickly was if he was already back in Roswell, the second time in only a day or two, again leaving his livestock unattended.

Brazel also tells a balloon story, then denies he found any sort of balloon. And then there are all the witnesses to Brazel finding something else and being incarcerated by and coerced by the military into changing his story. Now maybe CDA and other debunkers don’t find this very peculiar, but some people do. Sheriff Wilcox also contradicted Brazel on some points and admitted in an AP article that he was “working with those fellows at the base.” The Sheriff’s family would later see he too was coerced.

That is the reason why there is an argument that Brazel was forced to lie. It wasn’t invented out of thin air.

the whole of Bluebook was a farce, Ruppelt was a dupe, the Condon, Battelle and Robertson guys etc were all dupes. In fact anybody and everybody who knew this great secret has lied or kept his mouth shut for 63 years, whilst the entire US space programme has proceeded along false pretenses, etc. etc. (Remember that one of NASA's aims, when it was created, was to search for life in space). Oh, and every US president since '47 has maintained this lie (or has possibly been kept in the dark). But DR, who, like Friedman is besotted with 'Roswell is ET', cannot see the absurdities of the above.

Sigh, CDA just raving again when he has absolutely nothing of substance to argue.

David wrote : He also claimed there was a Flight #3 in N.M. on May 29, when all that is said is two guys sent up a balloon and most of the Mogul team wasn’t even there yet.

Well, in Crary's diary, May 28, we can read that "B-17 in from Watson with Mears, Hackman, NYU and Alden. They plan to flight test balloon tomorrow."

A first "contingent" arrived then May 28, including NYU personals AND some the big "heads" (Miss Mears, Hackman, Alden). The day after Crary's dairy stipulated "Mears and Hackman got balloon ascension off about 1 pm today with B-17 plan to follow it."

You are deducing Mears and Hackman were the 2 only persons present at Almogordo, then to make a service flight was impossible. Mears probably piloted the B17?^^ More seriously, you are incorrect in your reasonning.

No, they were not the 2 only ones at that time at almogordo! A first contingent came the 28 with NYU (personals), as they were already persons on the place (Crary for example).

Secondly, about Flight#2, you are wrong too:May the 8th they was a failure cause winds (at Bethlehem) as you pointed BUT&AND another flight made by Moulton and Peoples (over Middletown) with balloons followed by B17, then sent-off;)

Read Crary's Diary this day entry, dear David.

As already pointed, if you read Crary's diary or the NYU documents, there were flights before end May strat of June, East Coast (remember the one where the plan have an "oil" problem, 8 May). They are not mentionned in the appendixe concerning research flights too. But balloons flew for exemple at this entry (8 May) and it is maybe the #2.

I admit it is difficult to locate flight #2 exactly, but to claim as you do there was no flight 8 may is wrong.

DR cannot see that the AF phone call to the FBI at Dallas, and the resulting teletype from Dallas to HQ, completely destroys his (and others') ideas about there being a 'balloon switch' at Ft Worth. So naturally DR holds on to this alleged USAF 'lie' for dear life, lest his whole ET thesis goes down the plughole (which for real scientists it has, decades ago).

It is NOT policy for a branch of the military to tell lies to the FBI, the police or any other official body. Neither was there any need for the AF to notify the FBI at all. If the AF wanted to put out to the public some phony balloon story to cover up the true nature of the UFO, they would have kept quiet and told the FBI nothing at all.

Gen. Ramey told Major Kirton to notify the FBI by phone about the UFO find. I am certain he did NOT tell Kirton to make up a phony tale either. The AF knew perfectly well that there might be plenty of the debris still out at the ranch uncollected. They also knew that if a genuine ET craft had crashed, there was every likelihood debris had fallen elsewhere. In fact they could not possibly hope to cover up an event like this in one afternoon and ensure the lid would be kept on it. The whole sudden situation was well beyond their ability to control.

Look at that FBI teletype again:"[Kirton] advised would request Wright Field to advise Cincinnati office results of examination".

Now why would Kirton say such a thing to the Dallas FBI if the debris was the real ET stuff? If, say, someone at Wright Field inadvertently advised the local FBI that the stuff was genuinely extraordinary and maybe 'not of this earth', the whole plot would disintegrate into farce, and a lot of military guys would have egg on their faces.

The only logical conclusion is that there was NO such plot and the stuff was balloon (& radar target) debris after all. And it does NOT mean all of it was present in the photographs.

The point here is that nobody in the AF could be certain this quickly hatched plot, or cover-up (if such it was) would survive long. It would need incredible coordination and logistics to pull it off and, as I said before, they had absolutely no way of knowing what debris remained out at the ranch, or what other partial crashes occurred (e.g. maybe at San Augustin!). Or was Ramey the absolute genius to end all geniuses?

Finally, there is a simple answer to why there was no notification from Wright Field to Cincinnati FBI: The debris was never forwarded to Dayton. Ramey changed his mind shortly after notifying the FBI. Another possibility: it WAS forwarded to Dayton, found to be simple balloon debris, and was not thought important enough to notify the local FBI of it. Another is that the teletype of notification was so trivial that has been destroyed long ago. Thus the failure of the GAO to locate it. None of these needs any grand plot or cover-up, does it?

DR insists everyone is a liar. Ramey is a real genius but still a liar. So are numerous others, both in the military and out of it.

DR writes: "The day after Marcel & Cavitt are at the ranch, Brazel for unexplained reasons is back in Roswell...."

It seems DR has his dates/times wrong here. Brazel, Marcel & Cavitt first went out to the ranch the afternoon of July 7 (Brazel having been in town that morning).The 3 of them returned to Roswell on the morning of July 8 (time unknown).

Therefore when Brazel heard of the press release that afternoon he was already in town, and in fact had his interview at the RDR office a few hours later.

There was thus no need for him to go back to the ranch and then return to town.

[The idea put about by some that Brazel first went into town on Sunday July 6 is false; it was Monday the 7th, as the newspapers also make clear].

CDA wrote:[The idea put about by some that Brazel first went into town on Sunday July 6 is false; it was Monday the 7th, as the newspapers also make clear].

Clear and +1:our own french auto-proclamated Roswell exegete - Gildas Bourdais - (whom refuse to have a french debate with me for one year now) is claiming, stating, writting, booking, Brazel came in Roswell town the sunday in his "chronology" of the event, as making false claims about Crary's diary, NYU reports.

It seems, cause young (41 - sic -), No one of the french pro-ETH Roswell explanation want to debate with me in our Country :(

BTW:I have made a reply about Battelle SR14 statistical analysis, but it have been erased by Kevin (maybe cause off-topic, and I understand). I hope we will have a discussion here or there, in an appropriate topic.

Gilles wrote, "BTW:I have made a reply about Battelle SR14 statistical analysis, but it have been erased by Kevin (maybe cause off-topic, and I understand). I hope we will have a discussion here or there, in an appropriate topic."

I have not deleted anything like this. I will delete comments that I believe to be more personal than necessary and try to get those "commercial" messages when i find them. I simply do not delete anything that disagrees with me or has another point of view.

TY K.Randle. I believed it was off topic or dunno what (we made many comments totaly off topic). I have seen my comment present on the replies and after not. "Google" is strange.

So, I copy-paste that humble reply, regarding SR14.

Greetings CDA,

Yes I humblely "know" about BlueBook SR14 problem(s) and re-analysis by Hendry, but not the one made by Peebles. The another problem, as you pointed if I'm correct, is that some the best unknowns have been after becoming "known" by USAF - receiving a prosaic explanation - (for the second part of SR14 study). You have several times posted about, and I have noted your critic. Dunno, if it the case for all of us, but you are totaly right one more time.

Another "problem" I noticed was about the Chi-square general use (but Battelle statisticians warned about it).

For example concerning the color: Color between known and unknown cases:The distance calculated (26.15) is superior to critical distance (20.1), then the dependance between the 2 samples (IFO.UFO) is doubtfull with 1% error risk. OK, in a first view. But:

One first problem is that the green color makes a 10.13 contribution to the Chi-Square, because there are 130 green IFOs versus 14 green UFOs.

In other words, many green UFOs have been identified as green IFOs, very few are resisting to a prosaic explanations. BUT if such rare cases will receive later an explanation (prosaic), the contribution have a problem.

But the MAIN problem (at least imho) concerning "Color" is that "non established color" (2.37) or "others colors" (6.02) are contributing for 8.39 both!

In other words, absence of color dataes (2.37) and others colors (whish?), aka NO PRECISE dataes make the colors as a PRECISE criterion to separate IFO and UFO cause contributing to 8.39! That's funny!

Without this 8.39 contribution (absence of dataes and others colors!), Color is not a criterion to separate knowns and unknowns: the two samples would be dependant then!

We can notice other problems on the 5 others caracteristics too.

The big problem with SR14 (but Battelle statisticians warned!) is that the "dataes" used are SUBJECTIVE, and not measures in a scientific sens. Human are not a fiable measures instrument.

As it is writted and something many Ufologists refering to SR14 forget is:

"Although the reports considered in this study usually DID NOT contain scientific measurements of the attributes of each sighting, it was possible to establish certain valid conclusions by the application of statistical methods in the treatment of the data. [...] The INACURRACIES inherent in this type of data, in addition to the INCOMPLETENESS of a large proportion of the reports, may have OBSCURED any patterns or trends that otherwise would have been evident... Therefore, on the basis of this evaluation of the information, it is considered to be highly IMPROBABLE that any of the reports of unidentified aerial objects examined in this study REPRESENT OBSERVATIONS OF TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS OUTSIDE THE RANGE OF PRESENT-DAY SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.

Another anecdote or "myth" about SR14 I found was this quote:"When all six characteristics were considered together, the probability of a match between knowns and unknowns WAS LESS THAN 1 IN A BILLION."http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Project_Blue_Book_-_Project_Blue_Book_Special_Report_No_14/id/1866469

In other words, the author have additionned or multiplied the 6 Qui-Square different significance thresholds between them! That's statisticaly awesome and very new!

Well, here we go again, in the never-ending saga of Gilles creating Mogul balloon flights that never were.

David wrote : He also claimed there was a Flight #3 in N.M. on May 29, when all that is said is two guys sent up a balloon and most of the Mogul team wasn’t even there yet.

Well, in Crary's diary, May 28, we can read that "B-17 in from Watson with Mears, Hackman, NYU and Alden. They plan to flight test balloon tomorrow."

So 2 or 3 people from NYU (ambiguous) on May 28, hardly enough to assemble and send up a large Mogul balloon train and then track it properly, but enough to assemble and launch a much smaller and simpler Crary “TEST FLIGHT”, which according to Crary’s diary entry was sent up on May 29 by the two guys Mears and Hackman. This in Gilles’ and USAF DebunkerFantasyLand becomes “Flight #3”.

Incidentally, Charles Moore did not agree with either Gilles or McAndrew of the USAF. Moore put together his own fake Mogul table in his 1997 book, and instead claimed the failed flight May 8 in Bethlehem, PA, was the real Flight #3. Crary’s diary instead read “Trouble with winds and instruments did not go up.” Moore’s fake Mogul table reads “Balloons broke loose”. It’s pretty hard to have a real flight if either the “balloons broke loose” and/or “instruments did not go up”.

Obviously this is another balloon flight that never was. Moore spins it, however, as if it did go up, saying as to recovery site, “no recovery”, which isn’t surprising if the actual balloon flight never took place. But Moore insinuates it DID go up, just wasn’t recovered.

McAndrew instead spins it as the first attempt at #3, admits it didn’t go up, with the “real” Flight #3 on May 29 in N.M., even though Crary indicates this was nothing but a smaller “test flight” and only two people carried it off. Of course REAL Mogul summary tables and progress reports mention no real #3 flight anywhere, whether May 8 or May 29.

Onward with Gilles’ continued psychological denial of the obvious…

A first "contingent" arrived then May 28, including NYU personals AND some the big "heads" (Miss Mears, Hackman, Alden). The day after Crary's dairy stipulated "Mears and Hackman got balloon ascension off about 1 pm today with B-17 plan to follow it."

You are deducing Mears and Hackman were the 2 only persons present at Almogordo, then to make a service flight was impossible. Mears probably piloted the B17?^^ More seriously, you are incorrect in your reasonning. No, they were not the 2 only ones at that time at almogordo! A first contingent came the 28 with NYU (personals), as they were already persons on the place (Crary for example).

Sorry Gilles, but Crary’s diary says only 2 people, Mears and Hackman, were responsible, and that it was only a “test flight”. It also mentions only 3 people arriving the day before, maybe only 2 (Mears, Hackman) from NYU. They were an advance party, but not nearly enough to actually assemble and launch a large Mogul balloon train by themselves.

The entry on June 1, however, says another flight came in from NYU, names 5 people, including Moore, plus unnamed “others”. So this was the main team and the bulk of the NYU personnel. The diary then goes on to say once the full team arrived, June 1 they immediately set about assembling “balloon flights” (not “test flights”), which took a day, with the first attempt the morning of June 3, but cancelled because of clouds, as was the flight the following morning (the lengendary, mythical Flight #4).

Crary often used the term “balloon flight” to stand for “constant-altitude” Mogul research flights, the REAL numbered Mogul flights that survive in Mogul tables and progress reports. This is real obvious for the real Flights #5 and #6, both of which he again refers to as a “balloon flight”, added specifically for #5 a “whole assembly of constant-altitude balloons”.

Secondly, about Flight#2, you are wrong too:May the 8th they was a failure cause winds (at Bethlehem) as you pointed BUT&AND another flight made by Moulton and Peoples (over Middletown) with balloons followed by B17, then sent-off;) Read Crary's Diary this day entry, dear David.

If you go back further to the REAL attempt at #2 on April 18, it too failed because of winds and equipment failure. Mogul Progress report #1 states:

“Due to high wind… and due to malfunctioning of the Army receiver in the plane that was to follow the balloons, release was not made. The already-inflated balloons were cut free and the equipment was brought back to New York University.”

Moore’s fake table correctly notes in part under “Flight #2” that there was “no data” and “no flight” because of “telemetry failure”. Well, duhhh, what else can you conclude when the balloons were said to be cut free and the equipment removed?

But what did McAndrew write? “Absent from the reports are service flights nos. 2, 3, and 4. [Well yes!] Flight no. 2 was flown on April 18, 1947, at Bethlehem, PA, in an attempt to obtain accoustical data from the explosion of 5,000 tons of TNT by the British o the German island of Helgoland.”

Truly amazing! Maybe this is what they were trying to do, but it clearly NEVER HAPPENED. McAndrew turned mere intent into reality; he lied—flagrantly! Not even Moore agreed with him.

The Progress Report then says they would try again May 8. But clearly this second attempt at a constant-altitude flight also never went up, not as a complete balloon flight anyway, and, of course, is NOT recorded in Mogul reports as any flight. As Crary’s diary actually reads:

“Scheduled balloon flight this morning at 730… Trouble with winds and instruments did not go up. Peoples, Moulton over to Middletown with recording equipment on B-17 following balloons. Had no trouble following them. B-29 started dropping bombs dear Atlantic City about 8.”

This is another cryptic Crary diary entry. After noting wind problems and “instruments did not go up”, they are nonetheless chasing after balloons in a plane with recording equipment and planning a bomb run to test reception.

The way I interpret this is the winds were too high to carry out the planned “balloon flight” (again a term Crary typically used for the constant-altitude research flights elsewhere in his diary), so they stripped off the constant-altitude equipment, just as they had for the failed Flight #2 back on April 18, and cut the balloons loose, again just like April 18. These they followed in the plane. Since Crary notes the recording equipment and the planned bombing, they may have left a sonobuoy attached, to test the reception.

This again sounds like the Crary entry of June 4, where the planned “balloon flight” was cancelled because of cloud cover, and they INSTEAD did a small test flight “cluster of balloons” with a sonobuoy attached to again test reception.

But no matter how you interpret it, you cannot have a constant-altitude flight when the “instruments did not go up”. There was no constant-altitude flight May 8, maybe only an improvised substitute test flight. And for sure there is no “Flight #2” for this day in Mogul records, only in Gilles’ Mogul-fixated imagination.

Part 3 (end):Despite the obvious failure of the planned flight on May 8, Moore made this Flight #3 (not Gilles’ #2), even though it clearly never went up with its instruments. For the Air Force it was the first attempt at Flight #3, but it failed, only to be replaced with the equally nonexistent Flight #3 on May 29 (really a small “test flight”).

I do wish the debunkers would hold a conference and at least get on the same page with their numbering schemes for nonexistent numbered Mogul constant-altitude flights. It is all so confusing.

As already pointed, if you read Crary's diary or the NYU documents, there were flights before end May strat of June, East Coast (remember the one where the plan have an "oil" problem, 8 May). They are not mentionned in the appendixe concerning research flights too. But balloons flew for exemple at this entry (8 May) and it is maybe the #2.

Gilles, balloons flying is NOT the same as numbered research flights, which necessarily were by definition constant-altitude flights that actually left the ground and naturally had constant-altitude equipment attached. You cannot have one of these flights if the instruments are stripped off and never leave the ground.

Instead, you are turning unnumbered, unrecorded, much smaller test flights into something they were not.

I admit it is difficult to locate flight #2 exactly, but to claim as you do there was no flight 8 may is wrong.

It’s not that difficult—April 18, and it never went up: problem with winds and equipment, instruments removed, and balloons cut loose. End of story.

Pretty much the same thing for May 8, however it would have been numbered. High winds, instruments removed, but some sort of improvised test flight afterward, but NOT a constant-altitude flight.

Please stop substituting one for another in your desperate attempt to salvage the mythical Flight #4. This is now approaching the absurd in its irrationality.

Part 1.CDA said: “Obviously ETHers can always find a reason why the secret could, or might, have been kept for 63 years. In fact they have to give this reason, otherwise their 'Roswell was ET' thesis falls to pieces.”

Yes, but fortunately we don’t have to make up this reason, it is historical fact that this kind of secret can be kept by the US.

CDA, you are never more naïve and uninformed than when speculating on how national security matters are handled by the US. As KR pointed out early in this thread, it is obvious that you have never worked with a security clearance in a classified environment. Nevertheless, that does not stop you from believing in the innate superiority of your opinion on such matters. In other words, you are frequently wrong on this, but never in doubt.

To briefly summarize: In July, 1947 there were actually two separate, acknowledged systems of official secrecy operating in the US. One, which most people have at least heard of is operated by the Executive Branch of our government and deals with “National Security Information”, or NSI. The term NSI was actually defined in the National Security Act of 1947, passed a couple of months after the Roswell incident--but the same basic apparatus had been in place and operational through the War years-- the US having modeled its security classification scheme and practices on those of the British system, prior to WWII. NSI refers to information which has been determined (ultimately, by the President) to have the potential for causing various levels of potential or actual harm to the security interests of the US, if publicly released. The authority to create and keep NSI secret is granted to the President by the Constitution in executing his/her roles as Commander in Chief of the armed forces and as Chief Diplomat. All the diplomatic cables that are the subject of the recent Wikileaks incident are allegedly NSI.

Part 2.An entirely parallel system of secret information was created by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 which was (and still is) outside the control of the Executive Branch. This system was in effect by the summer of 1947, and created a category of information relating to atomic energy, its uses, and its technology known as Restricted Data (RD). Because the Atomic Energy Act created the category of RD and invested the Atomic Energy Commissioner with the sole authority to grant access to it, there are a number of significant differences between NSI and RD. For example, Executive Branch employees including the president him/herself do not automatically have access to RD just because they may have Top Secret clearances, even with code word access. The Atomic Energy Act specifically makes it illegal for anyone with access to RD or “special nuclear material“ (e.g., nuclear bombs) to transfer that information or material to anyone not possessing an Atomic Energy clearance, and the Act specifies that only US citizens may possess such clearances. This leads to cases where, for example, a US military officer assigned to NATO may share NSI at the Top Secret + Codeword level with his counterparts from other nations, but may not discuss RD with, or release custody of, special nuclear material to them. Another characteristic of RD is that it is “born secret” and remains that way in perpetuity unless and until the head of the Atomic Energy Commission (now, the Department of Energy) takes an explicit action to declassify it. I may be wrong on this point, but I believe that RD is not subject to automatic declassification review after a specified period of time, the way NSI is. Some RD may be declassified on the basis of the topic it deals with, but not necessarily on the basis of an arbitrary length of time having passed. In any case, I can verify from personal experience within the last couple of years that there are RD documents in the classified vault at the National Archives dating from the 1947 period that have never been subject to declassification review. The US is still keeping officially secret RD information that was classified in 1947.

Part 3.I go into this level of detail to address the incredulity expressed by you and some others that the Roswell secret could 1) belong to only a select few individuals in one and only one country, 2) never be released, and 3) be withheld from presidents, for example. I simply point out that we know for an absolute fact that such a category of knowledge did exist in 1947 and continues to exist. If the US government had UFO related knowledge in 1947 and decided to handle it in the same way that sensitive Restricted Data has been for the last 63 years, then all those features you are so incredulous about would have happened automatically.

You also said:…."So you think the country where another crash occurs...would let the US deal with it. Really?"

Sure. Again, the handling of crashed, lost, or damaged nuclear weapons (so-called “Broken Arrow” incidents) provides an instructive analogy. When the US had an aircraft accident that deposited the scattered remains of two thermonuclear weapons over the village of Palomares, Spain in 1966, Spain did not try to displace the US from taking the lead in handling the emergency. Nor did they try to obtain the nuclear secrets (RD) that may have been contained in the objects that fell on their nation’s soil. Nor, for that matter, would the US have allowed that to happen.

And by the way, this discussion only includes the two systems of secret information that are officially acknowledged in the US. I will leave discussion of the unofficial ones for a future post.

"Yes, but fortunately we don’t have to make up this reason, it is historical fact that this kind of secret can be kept by the US."

Are you kidding? When did the US EVER keep "this kind of secret"? By this I mean a visit from an extraterrestrial civilisation. Are you seriously equating an ET visitwith the kind of secret you talk about in your post?

Your further points are irrelevant, since the neither the US nor any other country has ever had "this kind of secret" to consider. If you doubt me, please provide the documentation to prove otherwise. And if you cannot locate such documentation, your answer will, I suppose, be because it is still top secret!

There are secrets the US can control. There are secrets that certain other countries can control, but there are some that NO country can control, namely the visit (whether hostile or friendly)of an ET civilisation. They cannot control meteorite falls, asteroid impacts or tsunamis either.

You talk about the thermonuclear weapons affair in Spain in 1966. This is not a secret. If it were, how come you know about it? How come it ever got into the public domain?

You are merely telling us of all the domestic secrets that could, or might possibly, be kept, for long periods. You are not looking at the broader picture, broader in the sense that it involves events and intelligent beings that science has no knowledge of.

Further to the above, fear of the unknown must play a part in this. It is easy to devise a set of rules governing secrecy and top secrecy when talking about events you know about, such as atomic energy and classified missile development.

When you are dealing with an unknown phenomenon, what then? For example, would Gen. Ramey or Gen Blanchard really send out armed troops to guard a supposed ET crash site (which site?) when for all they knew several new ET craft and beings were already there trying to gather up the debris from the crash?

You can almost envisage a 'Battle of Roswell', unique in the annals of warfare.

Instead of a cool, calm and well planned secrecy campaign, I see a frantic, chaotic period in which the USAF would have been totally unprepared. Fear of Russia in '47? Yes indeed, and what about fear of ETs?

David, one more time, I'm not a "debunker", I do my best to understand the case sincerly and honnestly. Sorry if I dont reach the same conclusion than yours (An ET spacecraft versus Balloons + ML307).

You wrote:"So 2 or 3 people from NYU (ambiguous) on May 28, hardly enough to assemble and send up a large Mogul balloon train and then track it properly"

Well, it needs only 5 men to launch the inflated balloons, according to NYU TR n°1 p.25, as from the pictures I have, more or less the same number to assemble the balloons. Not an hard task then, taking into account there was people on the place (with Crary, as others NYU came the 28 may).

If I suggested flight #2 (as service one) was maybe the one of the 8 may, and not the one of the 18 april, it is because the same document is stating about the numbering system (at least for me): p.27 it states that only flight which an attempt to obtain constant altitudes dataes are numbered, but later the same chapter states that are excluded launch failures and test for special gears.

Taking into account 18 april flight have not been released (no launch), I dunno if it could be the #2. That's why I supposed the 8 may one would be this number#2 (service) because at least something flew, but without possibility to record constant altitude dataes. Or, the 18 april flight is the number#2 because attempt have been made (in the assembly) to obtain constant altitude dataes even if not released. Dunno.

Moore counts as #2 the one of the 18 april, 3# the one of the 8 may and 4# the one of the 4 june. He was here in time and place, have decades of experience, so I'm more confident on Moore than any others (myself included^^).

But as, already pointed by CDA here or myself in another thread on this excellent blog, the real and crucial points are not the numbering system or to label with a number the different flights and tests the historiographical sources show us. That's "secondary" imho.

What it is important imho is that 29 may and 4 june,NYU apparatus have been launched at Alamogordo without any doubt.

The drawing of the cluster number 2 shows us without doubt RADAR TARGETS on the assembly. There is no reason to stop their use when NYU/Watson Labs team came in Alamogordo from East Coast.

And it is really and hightly reasonable, as Moore explained, that such flights, and probably the one of the 4 june, is the flight with which the team had learned that this technic is not possible here (cause the balloons passed out the range of the SR584) and then ML307 were no longer used in subsequent test flights in Alamorgordo, but radio-sondes.

On that very reasonnable base, 4 june flight is an excellent candidat for Foster Ranch wreckage and debris testimoned in FWST and RDR Brazel interview newspapers.

Cda makes a good point. The argument is that ET is not a US (or any earthly) project, therefore, the initiative is ET's and it is not under any nation's control. Neither do we know anything about ET's purpose, mission, psychology. Once ET is in the mix, we can barely speculate with any authority, for which reason cda's point is not unassailable since ET seems content with secrecy, and it fails if it is ET that imposes secrecy rather than the US.

I would be expecting comments detailing events, not of our making or in our control, that we have managed to keep secret for decades.

Larry has not yet introduced counter intelligence, which is more to the issue than the US system of classification.

Response to Gilles (More Mogul Madness), Part 1You wrote:"So 2 or 3 people from NYU (ambiguous) on May 28, hardly enough to assemble and send up a large Mogul balloon train and then track it properly"

Well, it needs only 5 men to launch the inflated balloons, according to NYU TR n°1 p.25, as from the pictures I have, more or less the same number to assemble the balloons. Not an hard task then, taking into account there was people on the place (with Crary, as others NYU came the 28 may).

But Crary doesn’t say that. He says only two guys sent up the “flight test”. So now you’re inventing more people being involved to salvage a nonexistent constant-altitude flight on May 29, when it is quite clear this was a small test flight of some kind, which is the real and obvious reason it was unnumbered and unrecorded in Mogul reports. Only the large constant altitude balloon flights were numbered and recorded.

If they DIDN’T go up, then there are blanks in the numbered flight sequence. That again is the real reason there is no Flight #2, #3, and #4. This argument is about all the games being played by the USAF, Moore, yourself, and, yes, other debunkers to create nonexistent constant-altitude flights missing from the records, the sole purpose being to argue that the nonexistent #4 caused the Roswell incident.

If I suggested flight #2 (as service one) was maybe the one of the 8 may, and not the one of the 18 april, it is because the same document is stating about the numbering system (at least for me): p.27 it states that only flight which an attempt to obtain constant altitudes dataes are numbered, but later the same chapter states that are excluded launch failures and test for special gears.

Yes, exactly Gilles. On both April 18 and May 8, it mentions high winds and the equipment never leaving the ground. What equipment are they talking about? Mainly the constant-altitude control equipment. That is why there is no mention of actual constant-altitude flights in the Mogul reports and tables for these dates. On May 8 you correctly observe some sort of balloon flight still took place, but it obviously wasn’t a constant-altitude flight, not when Crary’s diary notes that the equipment never got off the ground.

In the case of April 18, absolutely no flight of any kind happened. Instead a Mogul report says it was canceled because of winds and equipment failure, the reusable gear removed for a later attempt May 8, and the non-reusable, already-filled balloons “cut loose”. Yes balloons still went up, but there was nothing attached and this was no longer a constant-altitude flight. THAT is why there is a hole in the numbering sequence.

Despite this McAndrew, a counterintelligence agent of AFOSI, lied in the AF report and claimed there still WAS a Flight #2 on that date. This is the most flagrant example of the lying and deception in the debunkery camp to create fictitious Mogul flights, to support the equally fictitious Mogul Flight #4 on June 4, which Crary’s diary clearly indicates was canceled “again” because of clouds.

Moore played a similar game with the May 8 attempt, insinuating it too took place, but calling it Flight #3. And you and McAndrew are playing the same game with a May 29 test flight, trying to turn a simple “flight test” by 2 guys into a full-blown Mogul constant-altitude flight, before the bulk of the Mogul team, including Moore, had even gotten there. It is only when the full Mogul team arrived June 1 that Crary’s diary indicates that the NYU team was indeed assembling “balloon flights”, meaning constant-altitude research flights.

Taking into account 18 april flight have not been released (no launch), I dunno if it could be the #2. That's why I supposed the 8 may one would be this number#2 (service) because at least something flew, but without possibility to record constant altitude dataes. Or, the 18 april flight is the number#2 because attempt have been made (in the assembly) to obtain constant altitude dataes even if not released. Dunno.

The real Flight #1 is recorded April 3. The next noted attempt was April 18, but obviously fully cancelled because of wind and instrument problems. The report that mentions this also had an appendix with surviving schematic of the planned Flight #2 included. The report also says they removed the gear and would try again May 8, so whether this was now Flight #2 attempt #2, or Flight #3, attempt #1, I don’t know either.

All I know from the documentation is that neither attempt worked because of winds and none of the instruments left the ground. So neither was a flight (even if McAndrew flagrantly lied about April 18). I also know from the documentation that there is no recorded #2 or #3, and it is pretty clear that is because they never happened. And I also know there is similarly no record of #9, because it too was cancelled. And I think I can similarly conclude there is no recorded #4 because it too never came off.

Thus Crary’s entry on June 4 of “no balloon flight again” because of cloud cover means exactly that. Crary used “balloon flight” to refer to constant-altitude flights of early June after the main Mogul team arrived June 1. He notes them assembling “balloon flights” on June 1 and 2, failed attempts at “balloon flights” June 3 and June 4 because of clouds, and real “balloon flights” on June 5 and 7, the real Flights #5 and #6. Flight #5 is also specifically noted as a constant-altitude balloon array.

Moore counts as #2 the one of the 18 april, 3# the one of the 8 may and 4# the one of the 4 june. He was here in time and place, have decades of experience, so I'm more confident on Moore than any others (myself included^^).

Yes, Moore certainly doesn’t agree with you or McAndrew of a “Flight #3” on May 29, maybe because he was one of the major Mogul flight assemblers and launchers, and he himself didn’t arrive until June 1 with most of the rest of the team, as noted by Crary. Maybe Crary also calling this only a “flight test” by 2 guys also failed to convince Moore that they were carrying out true constant-altitude flights with a skeletal crew lacking him and most of the other Mogul flight people. So I certainly side with Moore on this one. No fictitious Flight #3 on May 29, and strike two against the disassembling McAndrew of the USAF.

However, Moore also wasn’t exactly honest either, since there was no “Flight #3” on May 8, which Moore invented out of whole cloth. Again, cancelled because of winds and the constant-altitude and maybe tracking instruments never left the ground. Only some sort of transmitter test flight took place.

And even though Moore’s fake table notes that “Flight #2” of April 18 was a “failed flight” and had “no data”, he doesn’t make it clear that it too NEVER HAPPENED. He still included it in the table as if it had flown, only they never obtained data from it, therefore not recorded. That was just deliberately misleading on his part.

But as, already pointed by CDA here or myself in another thread on this excellent blog, the real and crucial points are not the numbering system or to label with a number the different flights and tests the historiographical sources show us. That's "secondary" imho.

What we see here on the part of CDA and Gilles is a lot of backpedaling. To remind anybody bothering to read this, this all began when I challenged CDA and Gilles to produce the documentation that there ever was a Flight #4. Since there is none, they are now forced to concede as much, but are still trying to salvage a balloon hypothesis by claiming some sort of balloon flight still took place.

The problem is the USAF debunkers, and then Charles Moore insisted, followed by endless other debunkers aping the arguments, that you had to have a complete, fully-configured, 600 foot constant-altitude Mogul balloon flight, which were the real numbered flights. Much smaller test flights don’t count, typically composed of only a few balloons and no tracking or constant-altitude equipment. According to Moore, these test flights typically involved only 3 to 5 weather balloons hoisting some specific piece of equipment to be tested, not a 600 foot balloon train with 24-28 weather balloons, and supposedly 3-5 radar targets, parachutes, radiosonde, batteries, altitude control equipment, hundreds of yards of rigging, etc.

E.g., the USAF insisted that Mack Brazel’s 600 foot across debris field description was a perfect fit for one of these large Mogul trains. Descriptions of “bakelite”-like material by Jesse Marcel Jr. they equated to plastic tubes from the altitude control ballast system. Parchment-like material described by Marcel Sr. was equated to paper parachutes of the large Moguls. But if all that is unaccounted for are these much smaller test flights without altitude-control, radar targets for tracking, no parachutes, etc., then the whole claimed “match” of materials and debris field size falls apart.

Not that it really matters, since there are numerous mismatches in the debris descriptions that the USAF swept under the carpet. For example, McAndrew asked Moore about Mack Brazel’s claim that he found no rigging. Could the hundreds of yards of balloon twice, string, etc. have disintegrated in the sun? No, said Moore, and that was the last we heard the issued raised. McAndrew certainly wasn’t going to mention that “little” incongruity in his disingenuous summary.

And Mack Brazel’s description of only 5 pounds of debris didn’t help much either. What happened to the rest of the fictitious 600 foot Mogul Flight #4? And how could weather balloon material left in the sun for a month still be described as pliable rubber strips? Again, that can’t happen, since the neoprene material by that time would disintegrate into brittle black ash-like flakes hardly resembling any sort of balloon material anymore.

What it is important imho is that 29 may and 4 june,NYU apparatus have been launched at Alamogordo without any doubt.

“Apparatus” or “test flights” do NOT equal true constant-altitude flights, which were a whole different animal. The reason the lying McAndrew and almost equally lying Moore tried to invent nonexistent Flights #2 and #3, was to make a case for the equally nonexistent #4.

Ironically it was McAndrew, not Moore, originally who pushed the idea, Moore instead opting for a small test flight on June 4, not the obviously cancelled “Flight #4”. Then he flip-flopped and insisted it DID require a complete constant-altitude flight, and started championing the nonexistent #4. And here we are 15 years later still arguing over obviously nonexistent Mogul balloon flights, because AFOSI counterintelligence agents and Moore decided to invent them to supposedly explain Roswell.

The drawing of the cluster number 2 shows us without doubt RADAR TARGETS on the assembly. There is no reason to stop their use when NYU/Watson Labs team came in Alamogordo from East Coast.

This is how illogical these pro-Mogul arguments get. The planned Flight #2 had radar targets, therefore a totally undocumented flight 6 weeks later MUST have had them as well.

By similar reasoning, we know that Flight #8 July 3 had radar tracking, therefore presumably carried radar targets, therefore all previous and following documented flights must have also, including ones within days, since there is no reason not to use them, right? Unfortunately for such speculations, engineering schematics and flight summaries clearly indicated they did not, however reasonable such speculation might be.

Similarly ALL documented Mogul flights of this period carried radiosondes for tracking, including the planned #2, therefore so should #4. Yet Moore claimed, with his debunker-perfect 40+ year old memory, that “Flight #4” carried no radiosonde because they didn’t bring a recorder with them. Then he used the supposed absence of a radiosonde to try to explain away how they could have an actual flight, yet never record it (no flight data), while simultaneously claiming they tracked it by radar and visually from air and ground. On such two-faced nonsense is the whole Mogul theory based.

And it is really and hightly reasonable, as Moore explained, that such flights, and probably the one of the 4 june, is the flight with which the team had learned that this technic is not possible here (cause the balloons passed out the range of the SR584) and then ML307 were no longer used in subsequent test flights in Alamorgordo, but radio-sondes.

On that very reasonnable base, 4 june flight is an excellent candidat for Foster Ranch wreckage and debris testimoned in FWST and RDR Brazel interview newspapers.

All that Crary’s diary says for the test flight that followed the cancelled constant-altitude flight of June 4 is that it was a sonobuoy hoisted by a balloon cluster to test reception in the air and on the ground. They didn’t need tracking to do such a test, and Crary says nothing about a radiosonde, radar targets, or any sort of optical tracking being involved. Such tracking was only necessary for the constant-altitude flights to see if they were performing properly in their constant-altitude objective.

Again, to claim that this June 4 test flight carried radar targets is pure speculation on the part of all the debunkers, not supported by one shred of documentation. It’s all Moore’s say-so, based on his supposed recovered memories, all of which the debunkers treat as absolutely infallible. With DebunkerLogic, pure conjecture turns into certainty. Therefore Mack Brazel, unquestionably, found a balloon flight with radar targets from a June 4 launch.

And finally, even a test flight does not explain how even a small balloon cluster of maybe half a dozen weather balloons hoisting a sonobuoy, even assuming it carried radar targets, could reduce itself to no sonobuoy and exactly one slightly weathered balloon and one radar target without rigging and no Mack Brazel “flower tape” by the time it gets to Fort Worth. That is all that is shown in the photos and was also the story that Gen. Ramey and his men put out there—SINGULAR balloon and target, no equipment found.

"What we see here on the part of CDA and Gilles is a lot of backpedaling. To remind anybody bothering to read this, this all began when I challenged CDA and Gilles to produce the documentation that there ever was a Flight #4. Since there is none, they are now forced to concede as much, but are still trying to salvage a balloon hypothesis by claiming some sort of balloon flight still took place"

A balloon flight of some sort DID take place.

It is in Crary's notes. I do not care whether it was numbered #4, #3A, #3B or anything else. It DID take place. That is all that matters. Also, it was not recovered, at least not in the official logs. We do not know what it consisted of. DR says one thing, Moore another. We simply do not know, and never will.

Instead of going over all this again & again, let me put these to DR:

1. What do you think the RDR (two reports) and the Ft Worth ST for July 9 are describing? Does it sound like a wrecked craft from an interplanetary/interstellar civilisation or does it sound like something terrestrial, launched from a nearby AF base? If not launched from some nearby base, how do you think it got there?

2. Are you really telling us that the USAF (on orders from Gen. Ramey or above) lied to the FBI in their phone call to the Dallas office on the afternoon of July 8 (knowing that the message was going to reach FBI HQ, also knowing that this lie could be blown at any time, showing up the USAF and the FBI as blithering idiots)?

3. Do you really think Gen Ramey was so clever that he, and maybe others, could fix a plot within two hours or so to cover up something completely unknown to science, and which he had absolutely no control over?

4. Where, please, are the all the documents, the bodies and the wreckage after these 6 decades?

I wrote:"What we see here on the part of CDA and Gilles is a lot of backpedaling. To remind anybody bothering to read this, this all began when I challenged CDA and Gilles to produce the documentation that there ever was a Flight #4. Since there is none, they are now forced to concede as much, but are still trying to salvage a balloon hypothesis by claiming some sort of balloon flight still took place"

CDA:A balloon flight of some sort DID take place. It is in Crary's notes. I do not care whether it was numbered #4, #3A, #3B or anything else. It DID take place. That is all that matters. Also, it was not recovered, at least not in the official logs.

It wasn’t numbered anything, since only flights of constant-altitude balloons were numbered and recorded, but ONLY if they actually went up. All that was mentioned in the Crary diary is a smaller test flight sent up after the constant-altitude balloon flight was cancelled by cloud cover. From this, guys like CDA conclude this still MUST have been responsible for the Roswell incident.

We do not know what it consisted of. DR says one thing, Moore another. We simply do not know, and never will.

“DR” says it consisted of a sonobuoy lofted by a cluster of balloons, because that is what Crary’s diary says. “DR” does not invent other equipment, like the debunkers’ radar targets, that Crary doesn’t mention. Crary doesn’t say anything else about it, other than they tested reception of the sonobuoy from the ground and air. They did not need to track or recover such a test flight, therefore it is unlikely such a test flight carried any sort of tracking equipment, such as a radiosonde or radar reflectors, which again Crary doesn’t mention.

To say that this test flight carried radar targets is pure speculation, all based on the recovered memories of Charles Moore, caught confabulating about all sorts of things to try to support the Mogul hypothesis. And this is now the whole case of Gilles and CDA: two short sentences in Crary’s diary about a small test flight on June 4. Such fluff seem to constitute “proof” in DebunkerVille.

Instead of going over all this again & again, let me put these to DR:

1. What do you think the RDR (two reports) and the Ft Worth ST for July 9 are describing? Does it sound like a wrecked craft from an interplanetary/interstellar civilisation or does it sound like something terrestrial, launched from a nearby AF base? If not launched from some nearby base, how do you think it got there?

It’s called a cover story, like the U-2 spy plane crash in 1960 being called a NASA weather plane that went off course. NASA participated in the cover-up, putting out false transcripts of the pilot’s supposed last moments as he supposedly passed out from a faulty oxygen system. I bet CDA still believes that original story was true as well, since he can’t believe they would lie so blatantly, since they might get caught and be hugely embarrassed. See his comments below about how he can’t believe Ramey would lie to the FBI.

How did the debris in Fort Worth get there? Uhhh, perhaps some humans following orders rustled it up and placed it there?

They had hours to prep Brazel after Ramey’s balloon story. All they had to do was show him old balloon material and a dirt-common radar target and ask him to describe it. That’s one possibility, and not exactly hard to do. They didn’t even need to show him a balloon, since Brazel had found two weather balloons on his own before this.

There are many differences between Brazel’s descriptions and the story/photos out of FW. The FWST and the surviving photos show a balloon and radar target, described by Ramey and his men as a singular balloon and radar target, also confirmed by my computer analysis. A singular balloon and target would weight only a little over one pound, not Brazel’s “5 pounds” in the RDR story.

Part 2:There is none of Brazel’s “flower tape” in the FWST photos. And of course, ZERO documentary evidence that Crary’s June 4 test flight carried radar targets, much less radar targets with “flower tape”. Neither Brazel or Ramey described Crary’s sonobuoy or multiple balloons being found, which would have been the case if Brazel had found the June 4 test flight. Brazel denied finding any string or wire by which the balloon held up the object. None shows in the FW photos either. Where did it go?

Why is the balloon in the FW photos still mostly intact, a slightly weathered balloon (the neoprene balloons significantly darkened and decomposed in only a day). But Brazel claimed not picking debris up for an entire month after Crary’s June 4 test flight. Why wasn’t Ramey’s balloon decomposed to brittle, black, ash-like flakes, which would have been the condition of the balloon after a month in the sun.

Why did Brazel instead describe all the balloon pieces as small or rubber strips? How could Brazel roll such pieces and strips into a bundle, if they were nothing but ash by then?

Why did Brazel deny finding any sort of weather balloon at the end, after claiming he did find a balloon? The weather balloons of Crary’s small test flight would have the same as any other weather balloon.

The point is, the story and descriptions by Brazel, what was shown and described in FW, and Crary’s June 4 flight are grossly inconsistent with one another

2. Are you really telling us that the USAF (on orders from Gen. Ramey or above) lied to the FBI in their phone call to the Dallas office on the afternoon of July 8 (knowing that the message was going to reach FBI HQ, also knowing that this lie could be blown at any time, showing up the USAF and the FBI as blithering idiots)?

Ramey told the FBI that all that was found was a singular balloon and its attached radar target Is CDA arguing that is indeed all that was found?. What happened to Crary’s balloon cluster with sonobuoy? CDA, as is usual in DebunkerDebate, is trying to have it both ways. It was both things simultaneously.

Unless CDA wants to argue it was nothing but a balloon and radar target, then obviously the FBI was lied to. And as I’ve pointed out twice before when CDA raised his usual red herring, only two days later J. Edgar Hoover was already grousing how the Army wasn’t cooperating with the FBI and was withholding information on the flying discs. And then there was the Dallas FBI being told that the Cincinnati FBI would be informed by Wright Field the results of their analysis of the “disc” being flown there. But nobody can find any subsequent report to the FBI.

But CDA can’t believe the FBI would be lied to, therefore it never happened. How typical CDA. Let’s just let CDA write all the history books. No research or logical reasoning would be required, since CDA’s beliefs alone would determine what really happened and what did not.

3. Do you really think Gen Ramey was so clever that he, and maybe others, could fix a plot within two hours or so to cover up something completely unknown to science, and which he had absolutely no control over?

Why does CDA assume Ramey dreamed the whole thing up on his own or that they had only 2 hours to come up with a cover story? Is it barely conceivable that military intelligence and/or counterintelligence might have come up with this?

Back to historical reality. Marcel reported to Blanchard early morning July 8, about 7 hours before the press release from the base, and 8 hours before Ramey started putting out a balloon story. Back in Washington, they were already aware of something important cooking in Roswell, including Dubose’s story of the secret air shipment of debris by colonel courier to Washington, probably on Sunday, July 6, when Ramey was out of town. This would probably have represented debris samples Brazel had brought to town with him.

And even if Brazel hadn’t come to town until July 7 reporting a possible crashed saucer, this is still over a day before the press release. Based on how seriously Blanchard and Marcel obviously treated the story (would Ramey’s singular weather balloon and radar target engendered such interest?), likely the “crashed saucer” account would have been relayed up the chain of command, much like Dubose said.

The point is, any number of people would have had more than “2 hours” to plan a cover story. There had already been stories and photos in the press about the July 5, Circleville, Ohio, radar target crash perhaps explaining the flying saucer stories, so I suspect military intelligence/ counterintelligence decided to run with that and expand on it, including the use of saucer-debunking balloon demos in the days after Roswell, including at Fort Worth AAF on July 10 and Alamogordo on July 9. UP, INS, and Scripps-Howard newspapers all reported the military deliberately ridiculing the saucers and running an intense campaign to stop all the rumors.

4. Where, please, are the all the documents, the bodies and the wreckage after these 6 decades?

The same place atomic secrets are: locked up indefinitely in vaults. No doubt CDA will argue the public should have unlimited access to these as well.

As Larry tried to point out in his excellent posts, atomic secrets are born secret, and can stay secret FOREVER, without a mandatory classification review after 25 years, like state secrets (which can also stay secret forever, if deemed so in the interests of national security). The system developed to protect nuclear secrets was created during the war without any sort of public hearing, unlike the National Security Act of 1947, which officially established the CIA and NSC. The originally super-secret NSA was created by Truman through executive order, again without any sort of Congressional act or public review.

I fail to see why the flying saucers, probably perceived by the military and political leaders, as an enormous potential threat to national security, wouldn’t engender a similar sort of instantaneously imposed system of secrecy, much like that set up for atomic energy, not subject to classification review, and completely outside of the public domain.

On the other hand, the challenge I lay down to CDA and Gilles was much simpler: show me the documents proving a Mogul balloon crash happened at the Foster Ranch and was recovered by the military. There is no classification here to worry about, and I am still waiting for that incriminating document that proves their case… and waiting, and waiting….

An even simpler challenge was showing us the “flower tape” described by Brazel as actually being in the Fort Worth photos, which anybody can get copies of. At least that might show us a possible connection between what was displayed in Fort Worth and what Brazel claimed he found. But nobody can find it. Even the Air Force debunkers in 1994 had to concede that their mystery supersecret photoanalysis lab couldn’t find it either.

And here’s yet another very simple challenge. Put a neoprene weather balloon out in the summer N.M. sun for a month and demonstrate that it would look like the FW balloon in Ramey’s office, i.e., still pliable and mostly intact. Real demonstrations by Charles Moore showed reduction to brittle, black, ash-like flakes after only 2 to 3 weeks such exposure. I also have a photo by engineer Bob Galganski testing neoprene balloon rubber in the sun, showing it turn brown and stiffen up after only 5 hours sun exposure. So how come the balloon in Ramey’s office is in such good shape if it took Brazel an entire month to recover it?

"Where, please, are all the documents, the bodies and the debris after these 6 decades?"

DR replies:

"The same place atomic secrets are: locked up indefinitely in vaults."

No Mr. David Rudiak, they are not. They never were and are not now. They do not exist. They are merely part of your grand fantasy, part of your obsession with 'Roswell was ET'. No such secret would, or could, be kept 'indefinitely' as you claim. You will not acknowledge that this type of secret is TOTALLY different from any of those you bring up in your blog postings.

There was no cover story, no lying to the FBI, and no false newspaper story over an event the USAF had absolutely no control over (something you do not address). The ETs could have blown the whole story within hours, maybe minutes, i.e. even quicker than Russia did over the U-2.

Fortunately mainstream science knows this and is getting on with the business of looking for genuine evidence of life in space and, even possibly, intelligent life. I wish them well, and hope they are never diverted by the twaddle put about by the Roswell ET believers.

Despite the above it is entirely possible, and even probable, that the earth HAS been visited in the distant past by ETs. But by distant past I mean long long before recorded history.

Lol, so it's probable ETs got here in the distant past...If they could get here in the past, why not on a continuing basis, why not in '47 and NOW? You think the evidence for aliens getting here in the distant past is better than for them getting here in '47 and subsequently?? I think the problem with some people in this field is that they don't have the stomach for it. The idea of ET visitors is fine, provided they aren't something we may have to deal with HERE AND NOW. The idea is OK only if they can't traverse interstellar distances or it only happened in the distant past, or won't until the distant future......

There is no real evidence for ETs visiting earth in the distant past (apologies to von Daniken et al). But I would say the likelihood is that they did so, and maybe did so many times. How long has our planet existed? Some 4 billion years. This rather increases the probability that ETs did visit us sometime in the past, doesn't it?

Regarding traversing interstellar distances, the ETs would still have had to do so had they come in 1.947 billion BC as if they had come in 1947AD. However, they would have found a rather different planet in those far off days, comapred to what it is today.

One big difference is that the ETs would not have endured a lot of blathering earthlings arguing for decades afterwards about whether they did in fact make the visit!

Starman wrote:Lol, so it's probable ETs got here in the distant past...If they could get here in the past, why not on a continuing basis, why not in '47 and NOW? You think the evidence for aliens getting here in the distant past is better than for them getting here in '47 and subsequently?? I think the problem with some people in this field is that they don't have the stomach for it. The idea of ET visitors is fine, provided they aren't something we may have to deal with HERE AND NOW. The idea is OK only if they can't traverse interstellar distances or it only happened in the distant past, or won't until the distant future......

That's about the size of it. Carl Sagan played the same game as do most SETI scientists. Aliens in the distant past or many light years away are OK. Just don't let them get too close.

What we see here is classic psychological denial, and denial is rooted in fear. I think many debunkers are scared to death it might be true, hence the endless denial and everything that goes with it, such as arguments so stupid, illogical, and dishonest you would think they would be ashamed to be associated with them.

CDA is a good example of this. Why does somebody who thinks it's all bunk spend endless time arguing and belittling the topic? Doesn't he have something useful to do? He strikes me as somebody trying to keep the boogeyman at bay by beating it with a stick and reassuring himself with rant and ritual whenever the absurdity of his arguments is pointed out.

If he doesn't believe it, then it never happened. Like he can't believe Ramey might lie to the FBI. So was it really a singular weather balloon and radar target that threw high Roswell officers into a tizzy? That was Ramey's story. If it wasn't the truth-- and I don't know of any debunker today who would argue it was true--then Ramey lied to the FBI, QED. But CDA can't believe it, therefore it never happened.

Similarly he can't believe deep, dark secrets can be kept for decades. Therefore Roswell never happened. And never mind many historical examples to the contrary. You want secrets? Just request them from the government and they will hand them right over to you. CDA says so.

Latest example, over on ufocon he's arguing that all the news stories about phone lines being jammed into Roswell (or the Pentagon for that matter) following the Roswell press release aren't true because he doesn't believe it. Even what should be undeniable historical fact must be denied if it doesn't fit into his personal belief system.

(Maybe he's forgotten or never knew that long-distance phone traffic used to be handled by human operators at manual switchboards instead of automatic switching systems. There was no direct dialing back then. The local and long-distance operators would literally tell the callers that they couldn't place the call at that moment because of a lack of free phone lines into an area.)

"Why does somebody who thinks it's all bunk spend endless time arguing and belittling the topic?"

Well, they have to don't they, you know; given as how it must be especially galling with regard to comfort zones sans imagination when they are confronted with the awful realization that they, by their own 2D definition, must be right every single time... where you only have to be correct once.

Where does informed money go?

That's the fuel of their artless intransigence and non-informed insouciance, right there.

DR cannot see that the story about the phone lines being jammed on July 8 was all part of the military 'cover story'. Since DR assures us that the press were the victims of a grand cover-up, why could not this extra tale of the phone lines being jammed be part of this cover-up? After all, the press, in regards to Roswell, only printed what the military told them to, didn't they?

It is DR who simply cannot, or won't, realise that there are certain secrets the US military have no control over. This is one of them. Yes they CAN keep their atomic secrets, they CAN keep their secret missiles/planes top secret (provided they don't fly them into hostile countries), but they cannot keep ET secrets, not unless the ETs fortuitously never crash again or decide never to approach our planet again.

So I say to DR: Stop kidding yourself. ETs probably have visited us in the distant past. But in the New Mexico desert in 1947? Not one iota of a chance.

But I still eagerly await DR's, and Kevin's, hard evidence that they did so.

Sure, earth has existed for over 4 billion years. But ETs are far more likely to have visited us in recent times than in the distant past. The closer to the present, the greater the likelihood that alien civilizations arose and progressed, found earth and reached it. Population II systems are said to be metal deficient, so there might not have been any ETs until well after earth was formed. The proliferation of sightings in recent times makes perfect sense.

"Marcel said he retired from the AF because they had kept him so busy especially after he wrote the very report that Harry Truman read on TV re the Soviets exploding their first A Bomb."

Marcel said that he had been in the service for eight and a half years as well as the National Guard and felt he had a duty to his family, which is not what Kal said here.

He didn’t say that Truman read his report on TV, but read it on the air, which is not the same thing. Yes, it’s splitting a fine hair, but one that Kal would be quick to split if the situation was different.Kal continues his rant, writing, "Truman NEVER READ ANY SUCH REPORT on TV. Marcel was also NOT the author. The fact is, Project Mogul was as classified as the ABomb project during WW II. It was one of our top secrets."

We know that Truman didn’t read a report on TV, but on the radio, so Kal is wrong.

But the question is: did Marcel have anything to do with whatever the White House read on "air"/announced? I've never seen any proof that he did. And this avoids that question.

And by the way, at least initially, Truman may have not read such a statement on the "air" (anywhere) after all. (Which means Kal is right.) A 9/24/49 article (by A.A.P.) I am seeing in several newspapers just says that "The White House said that the President gave the information to his cabinet this morning."

Nothing I am seeing in the archives I am reading indicates the first White House release of this info came via a on-air announcement (via radio or TV). Just a issued written statement.

Just a point you might have missed... The purpose of Mogul was classified but what was going on in New Mexico was not. Pictures of a Mogul launch were published in the newspapers on July 10. Charles Moore told me that the ladder in one of the pictures was the ladder he bought in Alamogordo...

The name, Mogul, appears in Dr. Crary's diaries, which proves that those in New Mexico knew the name of the project.

No, Kal was wrong because Marcel didn't say a word about reading it on TV... rather than relying on the nonsense that Korff wrote, why not read Linda Corley's For the Sake of My Country, which provides four hours of interview by Marcel to get a clear picture of the man. Korff's hate filled diatribe doesn't really provide a proper perspective... In fact, if Korff said the sun rose in the east, I'd go look. You might want to visit the blog Kal Korff is an idiot to get an understanding of him.

No, Kal was wrong because Marcel didn't say a word about reading it on TV... rather than relying on the nonsense that Korff wrote, why not read Linda Corley's For the Sake of My Country, which provides four hours of interview by Marcel to get a clear picture of the man. Korff's hate filled diatribe doesn't really provide a proper perspective... In fact, if Korff said the sun rose in the east, I'd go look. You might want to visit the blog Kal Korff is an idiot to get an understanding of him.

Kal may have been wrong the way he stated it above. But in his book 'The Roswell UFO Crash' he states it this way [attributed to Todd]:

"In fact," he [Marcel] claimed, "I wrote the very report president Truman read on the air declaring that Russia had exploded an atomic device." Curiously, President Truman never went on the air to announce the Soviet A-Bomb explosion. Instead the White House issued a written statement.... (p. 67; hardcover edition)

By everything I've found, that is correct. And I have found no proof that Marcel had anything to do with the issued statement.

And let me remind you (since you brought up Corley's interview) that on Martin Willis's show (on 11/2/2016) you say about Ms. Corley's interview with Marcel that he "is saying things that are very disturbing, that suggest that maybe he tended to embellish things a bit". So I think you've had some of the same concerns about him [Marcel Sr.] that I have.

My thoughts on Kal? Aside from the fact he came across as a bit self-important/pompous, one big criticism I had is he would reach the end of Person X's testimony and dismiss it by saying it needed corroboration from others. He would get to Person Y's testimony (that seemingly corroborates X's) and dismiss it with the same complaint. And I'm sitting there thinking: Isn't that the corroboration you were looking for?

I also noticed how he put people who believed Roswell involved an ET through a meat grinder......meanwhile he seemingly accepted (just about without question) those who backed his p.o.v.. (Like Charles Moore.)

But I was pleased (at least) to see some critical thinking applied to some "witnesses" (like Kaufmann, Ragsdale, etc) for a change. To me, their story smelled from the get go.

Sorry, bu Korff invented information and provided nothing of substance or relevance to the Roswell case. If you read through the comments here, you'll see more evidence of this. If you wish to quote a skeptical source, I would suggest Karl Pflock's Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe and if you want the latest and what I believe to be the best analysis of the Roswell case, as it stands today, then that would be Roswell in the 21st Century.

You don't need to remind me about what I said... I quoted from Corley's book in my latest. It does not cast Marcel in the best light, but it does provide insight into his make up and story telling. All that is quite worrisome, as I have said. But, to understand it all, you need to be aware of it all... Korff and Todd did not understand some of the military jargon nor how the military functioned because neither had ever served in the military.

Believe him if you wish, but your theories would be better supported by ignoring him completely and using the better skeptical sources such as Pflock.

I never said I 100% believed/trusted Korff.....in fact, I detailed some criticisms of his work.

Aside from Klass (whom I never considered very objective) Korff was one of the first I remember giving in-depth reasons to be skeptical about some of the principal Roswell "witnesses". (Since his book came out years before Pflock's.)